


The Real Number Four

by SolomonEmrys



Category: I Am Number Four (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27395281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolomonEmrys/pseuds/SolomonEmrys
Summary: What if Henri took John's/Number 4's training seriously? What if we had a more confident and stronger John?
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

Summary: Henri decides that Four needs to be trained and taught much sooner than in the original story, he teaches Four all about their history as a species its culture, and language. With no time for school, Four dedicates his time to his training, wanting to be the strongest Guarde and best defender for his people.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WERE NINE OF US. We left when we were young, almost too young to remember.

Almost.

I am told the ground shook, that the skies were full of light and explosions. We were in that two-week period of the year when both moons hang on opposite sides of the horizon. It was a time of celebration, and the explosions were at first mistaken for fireworks. They were not. It was warm, a soft wind blew in from off the water. I am always told the weather: it was warm. There was a soft wind. I've never understood why that matters.

What I remember most vividly is the way my grandmother looked that day. She was frantic and sad. There were tears in her eyes. My grandfather stood just over her shoulder. I remember the way his glasses gathered the light from the sky. There were hugs. There were words said by each of them. I don't remember what they were. Nothing haunts me more.

It took a year to get here. I was five when we arrived. We were to assimilate ourselves into the culture before returning to Lorien when it could again sustain life. The nine of us had to scatter and go our own ways. For how long, nobody knew. We still don't. None of them know where I am, and I don't know where they are, or what they look like now. That is how we protect ourselves because of the charm that was placed upon us when we left, a charm guaranteeing that we can only be killed in the order of our numbers, so long as we stay apart. If we come together, then the charm is broken.

When one of us is found and killed, a circular scar wraps around the right ankle of those still alive. And residing on our left ankle, formed when the Loric charm was first cast, is a small scar identical to the amulet each of us wears. The circular scars are another part of the charm. A warning system so that we know where we stand with each other, and so that we know when they'll be coming for us next. The first scar came when I was nine years old. It woke me from my sleep, burning itself into my flesh. We were living in Arizona, in a small border town near Mexico. I woke screaming in the middle of the night, in agony, terrified as the scar seared itself into my flesh. It was the first sign that the Mogadorians had finally found us on Earth, and the first sign that we were in danger. I wanted to be a normal kid living a normal life, but I knew then, beyond any doubt or discussion, that I wasn't. From that point on Henri decided that we couldn't just run anymore. We had to get stronger and to plan our defense and eventual attack on the Mogadorians. It started with tactic training for the first couple of years and learning about the Lorain culture. We decided that I could learn more staying home and training rather than going to school for 8 hours a day. We moved to Minnesota the next day.

The second scar came when I was twelve. I was in our backyard running through some katas that Henri was teaching me when the pain started thankfully we choose to live excluded from most people so my sudden shock and shout in pain didn't alert anyone but Henri, we still decided that it was best to move on this time to Maine. We left with most of our things we had especially the Loric Chest that Henri brought along on every move. All twenty-one of them to date. It was through dedicated training that my telekinesis came that same year.

The third scar appeared an hour ago. I was sitting on a pontoon boat. The boat belonged to the parents of the most popular kid at the local high school, and unbeknownst to them, he was having a party on it. I had never been invited to any parties before but I happened to run into some of the local kids in the area. I had always, because I knew we might leave at any minute, kept to myself. But it had been quiet for four years. I was 16 now and Henri hadn't seen anything in the news that might lead the Mogadorians to one of us or might alert us to them. We moved once more and stayed for two years with no signs so I made a couple of friends. And one of them introduced me to the kid who was having the party. Everyone met at a dock. There were three coolers, some music, girls I had admired from afar but never decided to try and pursue because I never knew when we would leave. We pulled out from the dock and went half a mile into the Gulf of Mexico. I was sitting on the edge of the pontoon with my feet in the water, talking to a cute, dark-haired, blue-eyed girl named Tara, when I felt it coming. The water around my leg started boiling, and my lower leg started glowing where the scar was embedding itself. The third of the Lorien symbols, the third warning. Tara started screaming and people started crowding around me. I knew there was no way to explain it. And I knew we would have to leave immediately.

The stakes were higher now. They had found Number Three, wherever he or she was, and Number Three was dead. So I calmed Tara down and kissed her on the cheek and told her it was nice to meet her and that I hoped she had a long beautiful life. I dove off the side of the boat and started swimming, underwater the entire time, except for one breath about halfway there, as fast as I could until I reached the shore. I ran along the side of the highway, just inside of the tree line, moving at speeds much faster than any of the cars. When I got home, Henri was at the bank of scanners and monitors that he used to research news around the world, and police activity in our area. He knew without me saying a word, though he did lift my soaking pants to see the scars. I told him what had happened and that we should keep an eye up for videos surfacing of what just happened. In the beginning we were a group of nine. Three are gone, dead. There are six of us left. They are hunting us, and they won't stop until they've killed us all. I am Number Four. I know that I am next. And I am ready.

We stare up at our house that we have lived in for the past two years, I'll miss it.

Henri comes out carrying the last of our personal items we had. He is wearing khaki shorts and a black polo. He is very tan, with an unshaven face that seems downcast. He is also sad to be leaving. He tosses the final boxes into the back of the truck with the rest of our things.

"That's it," he says.

I nod. We stand and stare up at the house and listen to the wind come through the palm fronds. I am holding a bag of celery in my hand.

"I'll miss this place," I say. "Even more than the others."

"Me too."

"Time for the burn?"

"Yes. You want to do it, or you want me to?"

"I'll do it." Henri pulls out his wallet and drops it on the ground. I pull out mine and do the same. He walks to our truck and comes back with passports, birth certificates, social security cards, checkbooks, credit cards, and bank cards, and drops them on the ground. All of the documents and materials related to our identities here, all of them forged and manufactured. I grab from the truck a small gas can we keep for emergencies. I pour the gas over the small pile. My current name is Daniel Jones. My story is that I grew up in California and moved here because of my dad's job as a computer programmer. Daniel Jones is about to disappear. I light a match and drop it, and the pile ignites. Another one of my lives, gone. As we always do, Henri and I stand and watch the fire. Bye, Daniel, I think, it was nice knowing you. When the fire burns down, Henri looks over at me.

"We gotta go."

"I know."

"These islands were never safe. They're too hard to leave quickly, too hard to escape from. It was foolish of us to come here."

I nod. He is right, and I know it. But I'm still reluctant to leave. We came here because I wanted to, and for the first time, Henri let me choose where we were going. We've been here two years, and it's the longest we have stayed in any one place since leaving Lorien. I'll miss the sun and the warmth. I'll miss the gecko that watched from the wall each morning as I ate breakfast. Though there are literally millions of geckos in south Florida, I swear this one follows me and seems to be everywhere I am. I'll miss the thunderstorms that seem to come from out of nowhere, the way everything is still and quiet in the early morning hours before the terns arrive. I'll miss the dolphins that sometimes feed when the sunsets. I'll even miss the smell of sulfur from the rotting seaweed at the base of the shore, the way that it fills the house and penetrates our dreams while we sleep.

"Get rid of the celery and I'll wait in the truck," Henri says. "Then it's time."

I enter a thicket of trees off to the right of the truck. There are three Key deer already waiting. I dump the bag of celery out at their feet and crouch down and pet each of them in turn. They allow me to, having long gotten over their skittishness. One of them raises his head and looks at me. Dark, blank eyes staring back.

"Are you leaving?"

A shudder runs up my spine as I hear him in my mind.

"Yes this is goodbye buddy," I say and pet his head.

He drops his head and continues eating.

"Good luck, little friends," I say, and walk to the truck and climb into the passenger seat.

We watch the house grow smaller in the side mirrors until Henri pulls onto the main road and the house disappears. It's a Saturday. I wonder what's happening at the party without me. What they're saying about the way that I left I wish I could have said good-bye. I'll never see anyone I knew here ever again. I'll never speak to any of them. And they'll never know what I am or why I left. After a few months, or maybe a few weeks, none of them will probably ever think of me again.

Before we get on the highway, Henri pulls over to gas up the truck. As he works the pump, I start looking through an atlas he keeps in the middle of the seat. We've had the atlas since we arrived on this planet. It has lines drawn to and from every place we've ever lived. At this point, there are lines crisscrossing all of the United States. We know we should get rid of it, but it's really the only piece of our life together that we have. Normal people have photos and videos and journals; we have the atlas. Picking it up and looking through it, I can see Henri has drawn a new line from Florida to Ohio. Henri gets back into the truck. He has bought a couple of sodas and a bag of chips. He pulls away and starts heading toward U.S. 1, which will take us north. He reaches for the atlas. Henri had decided he wanted to look into a guy named Malcolm Goode that had gone missing. Apparently, he was the guy that met us and gave us our first home when we arrived on earth. So we needed to move to a small town called Paradise, Ohio

"Do you think there are people in Ohio?" I joke.

He chuckles. "I would imagine there are a few. And we might even get lucky and find cars and TV there, too."

I nod. Maybe it won't be as bad as I think.

"What do you think of the name 'John Benson'?" I ask.

"Is that what you've settled on?"

"I think so," I say. I've never been a John before or a Benson.

"Not too uncommon, I think you will be able to blend in. I would say it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Benson."

I smile. "Yeah, I think I like 'John Benson.'"

"I'll create your forms when we stop."

A mile later we are off the island and cruising across the bridge. The waters pass below us. They are calm and the moonlight is shimmering on the small waves, creating dapples of white in the crests. On the right is the ocean, on the left is the gulf; it is, in essence, the same water, but with two different names. It's not that I'm necessarily sad to leave Florida, but I'm tired of running. I wonder if it'll ever be possible for us to stop.

We've stopped to get some food and gas, Henri has already started on our paperwork for our new identities that we will print off when we arrive.

"You're sure about John Benson?" Henri asks

"Yes."

"Alright you were born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama." I laugh "How did you come up with that?"

He smiles and points to two very hot women not far away from us wearing shorts that say WE DO IT BETTER IN TUSCALOOSA.

I think to myself 'I wonder what it is they do better there.'

"And John remember we need to be safe, don't forget that you are next and that we need to be hyper-vigilant."

"I will Henri don't worry, they will be in for a surprise when we finally meet," I say with a bit of a crooked smile on my face.

Henri drives the entire time. Between breaks and the creation of the new documents, it takes about thirty hours. I spend most of the time napping or meditating. Mostly I am just doing some mental exercises, and fighting mogs in to release some tension and to go over all the martial art forms I have learned. I'm tired of sitting in the truck. The clock on the dash reads 7:58. I yawn, wipe my eyes.

"How much farther?"

"We're almost there," Henri says.

It is dark out, but there is a pale glow to the west. We pass by farms with horses and cattle, then barren fields, and beyond those, it's trees as far as the eye can see. This is exactly what Henri wanted, a quiet place to go unnoticed.

A few minutes later we see scattered lights that announce the town. We pass a sign that reads:

WELCOME TO PARADISE, OHIO POPULATION 5,243

"Wow," I say. "This place is even smaller than where we stayed in Montana."

Henri is smiling. "Who do you think it's paradise for?"

"Cows, maybe? Scarecrows?"

We pass by an old gas station, a car wash, a cemetery. Then the houses begin, clapboard houses spaced thirty or so feet apart. Halloween decorations hang in the windows of most of them. A sidewalk cuts through small yards leading to the front doors. A traffic circle sits in the center of town, and the middle of it is a statue of a man on horseback holding a sword. Henri stops. We both look at it and laugh, though we're laughing because we hope no one else with swords ever shows up here. He continues around the circle and once we're through it, the dashboard GPS tells us to make a turn. We begin heading west, out of town.

We drive for four miles before turning left onto a gravel road, then pass open cut fields that are probably full of corn in the summer, then through a dense forest for about a mile. And then we find it, tucked away in overgrown vegetation, a rusted silver mailbox with black lettering painted on the side of it that reads 17 OLD MILL RD.

"The closest house is two miles away," he says, turning in. Weeds grow throughout the gravel drive, which is littered with potholes filled with tawny water. He comes to a stop and turns the truck off.

"Whose car is that?" I ask, nodding to the black SUV Henri has just parked behind.

"I'm assuming the real-estate agent's."

The house stands silhouetted by trees. In the dark, there is an eerie look to it, like whoever last lived in it was scared away, or was driven away, or ran away. I get out of the truck. The engine ticks and I can feel the heat coming off of it. I grab my bag from the bed and stand there holding it.

"What do you think?" Henri asks.

The house is one story. Wooden clapboard. Most of the white paint has been chipped away. One of the front windows is broken. The roof is covered with black shingles that look warped and brittle. Three wooden stairs lead to a small porch covered with rickety chairs. The yard itself is long and shaggy. It's been a very long time since the grass was last mowed.

"It looks like Paradise," I say.

We walk up together. As we do, a well-dressed blond woman around Henri's age comes out of the doorway. She's wearing a business suit and is holding a clipboard and folder; a BlackBerry is clipped to the waist of her skirt. She smiles.

"Mr. Benson?"

"Yes," says Henri.

"I'm Annie Hart, the agent from Paradise Realty. We spoke on the phone. I tried calling you earlier but your phone seemed to be turned off."

"Yes, of course. The battery unfortunately died on the way here."

"Ah, I just hate when that happens," she says, and walks towards us and shakes Henri's hand. She asks me my name and I tell her, though I am tempted, as I always am, to just say "Four." As Henri signs the lease she asks me how old I am and tells me she has a daughter at the local high school about my age. She's very warm, friendly, and clearly loves to chat. Henri hands the lease back and the three of us walk into the house.

Inside most of the furniture is covered with white sheets. Those that aren't covered are coated with a thick layer of dust and dead insects. The screens in the windows look brittle to the touch, and the walls are covered with cheap plywood paneling. There are two bedrooms, a modest-sized kitchen with lime green linoleum, one bathroom. The living room is large and rectangular, situated at the front of the house. There's a fireplace in the far corner. I walk through and toss my bag on the bed of the smaller room. There is a huge faded poster of a football player wearing a bright orange uniform. He's in the middle of throwing a pass, and it looks like he's about to get crushed by a massive man in a black and gold uniform. It says BERNIE KOSAR, QUARTERBACK, CLEVELAND BROWNS.

"Come say good-bye to Mrs. Hart," Henri yells from the living room.

Mrs. Hart is standing at the door with Henri. She tells me I should look for her daughter at school, that maybe we could be friends. I smile and say yes, that would be nice. After she leaves we immediately start unpacking the truck. Depending on how quickly we leave a place, we either travel very lightly—meaning the clothes on our back, Henri's laptop and the intricately carved Loric Chest that goes everywhere with us—or we bring a few things—usually Henri's extra computers and equipment, which he uses to set up a security perimeter and search the web for news and events that might be related to us. This time we have the Chest, the two high-powered computers, four TV monitors, and eight cameras. We also have most of our clothes, though not many of the clothes we wore in Florida are appropriate for life in Ohio. Henri carries the Chest to his room, and we lug all of the equipment into the basement, where he'll set it up so no visitors will see it. Once everything is inside, he starts placing the cameras and turning on the monitors.

"Let's go over the plan," Henri says as he turns towards me once we bring everything in.

We started on our plan to find Malcolm. Henri thought the best plan would be to find his son Sam Goode and befriend him learning everything he knew about his father's disappearance. While Henri set up our security and got my papers for the next day settled I did some late night training and meditations to prepare myself for what I would have to deal with for the foreseeable future, High Schoolers

Another new identity and another new town. I've lost track of how many there have been over the years. Fifteen? Twenty? Always a small town, training, and practice, always the same routine. Sometimes I question our strategy of sticking to the small towns because it's hard, almost impossible, to go unnoticed. But I know Henri's rationale: it is impossible for them to go unnoticed as well.

I woke up early that morning at about 5 am to get a light workout before jogging to school, it was 3 miles away. Henri made sure I had plenty of rations and supplies. Five days' worth of dried fruit and nuts. Spare socks and thermal underwear. Rain jacket. A handheld GPS. Then we went over the plan again before I left for the day.

I managed to get to school with an hour or so to spare before the start of the school day. They're divided into their cliques, the jocks, and the cheerleaders, the band kids carrying instruments, the brains in their glasses with their textbooks and BlackBerries, the stoners off to one side, oblivious to everyone else. One kid, gangly with thick glasses, stands alone. He's wearing a black NASA T-shirt and jeans, and can't weigh more than a hundred pounds. He has a handheld telescope and is scanning the sky, which is mostly obscured by clouds. I notice a girl taking pictures, moving easily from one group to the next. She's shockingly beautiful with straight blond hair past her shoulders, ivory skin, high cheekbones, and soft blue eyes. Everyone seems to know her and says hello to her, and no one objects to her taking their picture.

She sees me, smiles, and waves. The girl walks towards me, smiling. I've never seen a girl so good-looking, not even in my last group of friends or those women we saw at that gas stop. Smiling and walking over she lowers her camera and sticks a hand out giving off a million wat smile while doing so.

"Hi, you must be the new kid right John?" The girl says while still holding her hand out to me.

"Yeah sorry... John Benson first day and all that. How'd you know?" I smile at her and shake her hand.

"I'm Sarah Hart. My mother is your real estate agent. She told me you'd probably be starting school today, and I should look out for you. You're the only new kid to show up today."

I laugh "Yeah, I met your mom. She was really nice."

"Ow wow, your hand is really warm do you maybe have a fever?" Sarrah said as she put her hand on my forehead to check my temperature.

'Her hand felt really good, it was so small and soft,' I had internalized while she checked me for a fever.

"No I think I'm fine I usually run pretty warm" I responded while she took her hand off my forehead. "I should probably head inside and get checked in though before classes start," I say

"Oh yeah, here let me show you around and help you get sorted," Sarah says as she grabs my hand pulling me inside.

A.N. Sorry I am going through and trying to fix some issues that I hadn't caught early on.


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Two-

Sarah brings me to the principal's office before telling me that she'll see me later, letting go of my hand she walks away waving.

The principal's name is Mr. Harris. He's fat and mostly bald, except for a few long hairs at the back and sides of his head. His belly reaches over his belt. His eyes are small and beady, set too close together. He grins at me from across the desk, and his smile seems to swallow his eyes.

"So you're a sophomore from Santa Fe?" he asks.

I nod, say yes even though we've never been to Santa Fe, or New Mexico, for that matter. A simple lie to keep from being traced.

"That explains the tan. What brings you to Ohio?"

"My dad's job."

Henri isn't my father, but I always say he is to allay suspicion. In truth, he is my Cêpan, or what would be better understood on Earth as my guardian. On Lorien, there were two types of citizens, those who develop Legacies, or powers, which can be extremely varied, anything from invisibility to the ability to read minds, from being able to fly to using natural forces like fire, wind, or lightning. Those with the Legacies are called the Garde, and those without are called Cêpan. I am a member of the Garde. Henri is a Cêpan. Every Garde is assigned a Cêpan at an early age. Cêpans help us understand our planet's history and develop our powers. The Cêpan and the Garde—one group to run the planet, the other group to defend it. Mr. Harris nods.

"And what does he do?"

"He's a writer. He wanted to live in a small, quiet town to finish what he's working on," I say, which is our standard cover story.

Mr. Harris nods and squints his eyes.

"You look like a strong young man. Are you planning on playing sports here?"

"I wish I could. I have asthma, sir," I say, my usual excuse to avoid any situation that might betray my strength and speed.

"I'm sorry to hear that. We're always looking for able athletes for the football team," he says, and casts his eyes to the shelf on the wall, on top of which a football trophy sits engraved with last year's date.

"We won the Pioneer Conference," he says and beams with pride.

He reaches over and pulls two sheets of paper from a file cabinet beside his desk and hands them to me. The first is my student schedule with a few open slots. The second is a list of the available electives. I choose classes and fill them in, then hand everything back. He gives me a sort of orientation, talking for what seems like hours, going over every page of the student manual with painstaking detail. One bell rings, telling kids to go to class then another informing us that class has started. When he finally finishes he asks if I have any questions. I say no.

"Excellent. There is a couple of minutes left of the first period, and you've chosen astronomy with Mrs. Burton. She's a great teacher, and her class is next on your schedule. She won an award from the state once, signed by the governor himself."

"That's great," I say.

After Mr. Harris struggles to free himself from his chair, we leave his office and walk down the hall. The bell rings and kids start pouring into the hallway, being sure to be on their best behavior with the principal walking by. His shoes click upon the newly waxed floor. The air smells of fresh paint and cleaner. Lockers line the walls. Many are covered with banners supporting the football team. There can't be more than twenty classrooms in the whole building. I count them as we pass. It seems he sees someone in the hallway as he calls out to them a second later

"Miss Hart, would you please show Mr. Benson here to his next class? He shares astronomy with you," Mr. Harris says.

"Sure I don't mind," Sarah responds as she walks over

Mr. Harris extends his hand. I shake it.

"We're happy to have you. I like to think of us as a close-knit family. I'm glad to welcome you to it."

"Thank you," I say.

Mr. Harris walks away back towards his office after Sarah comes over.

"Well come on let's get to class," She says as she grabs my arm pulling me to our class.

I notice a taller boy walking towards us as we begin to turn six one maybe, about my height. His hair is black, full of hair gel, carefully styled so it goes in all directions. He has meticulously trimmed sideburns, stubble on his face. Bushy eyebrows over a set of dark eyes. From his letterman jacket, I see that he is a senior, and his name is written in gold cursive stitching. It reads MARK JAMES.

We turn into room seventeen I can see kitchen tables scattered across the room with three chairs for each table. We go towards the back before sitting down me towards the wall and her sitting in the middle seat. Another girl joins us a second later, and after the rest of the students come in the teacher comes in who then proceeds to close the door behind her just as the bell rings. She looks about sixty, wearing a pink wool sweater and red plastic glasses attached to a chain around her neck. She smiles widely, her hair graying and curly.

"Goodmorning class, it appears we have a new student with us today," She says while still smiling. "Would you please stand and introduce yourself?"

I stand up with everyone in the room looking over at me, I try and give my best smile.

"And what is your name?" she asks.

I take a deep breath and say, "John Benson."

"Great! And where are you from?"

"Fl—," I begin, but then catch myself again before the word fully forms. "Santa Fe."

"Class, let's give him a warm welcome."

I get a couple of claps and a smile from Sarah who is still next to me, but I get one scowl from that guy in the hallway earlier. Mark James I do believe going off of his jacket at least. I could literally break him in half if I wanted to. I could throw him into the next county. If he tried to run away and got into a car, I could outrun his car and put it at the top of a tree. Henri's words echo in my mind: "Don't stand out or draw too much attention."

I know that will be a futile effort here, I can tell that he doesn't like me and that he is going to try and do something.

Mrs. Burton stands at the head of the class. She describes why there are rings around Saturn, and how they're made mostly of ice particles and dust. After a while, I tune her out and look at the other students. A whole new group of people that I'll yet again try to keep at a distance. It's always a fine line, having just enough interaction with them to remain mysterious without becoming strange and thus sticking out. I've already done a horrible job of that today.

I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. My hands feel warmer than usual, a little bit of adrenaline and nervousness from my first time going to school, and being so close to a pretty girl is making me a little warm under the collar.

I open and close my hands. My palms are sweaty and beginning to burn. Another deep breath. My vision is blurring. Five minutes pass, then ten. Mrs. Burton is still talking but I don't hear what she is saying. I squeeze my fists shut, then reopen them. When I do my breath catches in my throat. A slight glow is coming from my right palm. I look down at it, dumbfounded, amazed. After a few seconds, the glow begins to brighten. I close my fists. I try and meditate to calm my nerves and to try and rest some control. My initial fear is that something else has happened to one of the others. But what could happen? We can't be killed out of order. That is the way the charm works. But does that mean that some other harm can't befall them? Has somebody's right hand been cut off? I have no way of knowing. But if something had happened, I would have felt it in the scars on my ankles. And only then does it dawn on me. My first Legacy must be forming.

I pull my phone out of my bag and send Henri a text that says Come. I'm too dizzy to send anything else. I close my fists and place them in my lap. They're burning and shaking. I manage to calm a bit and the heat starts to dissipate. My left palm is bright red, my right is faintly glowing. I glance at the clock on the wall and see that class is almost over. I start counting the seconds: sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight. I focus on counting. Forty, thirty-nine. They're tingling now, as though little needles are being stuck into my palms. Twenty-eight, twenty-seven. I open my eyes and turn to glance at Sarah with the hope that looking at her will distract me. Fifteen, fourteen. Seeing her makes it worse. The needles feel like nails now. Nails that have been put in a furnace and heated until they're glowing. I close my eyes and try and rest my head on the table hoping that it will help cool me off. Sarah notices my off behavior while doing so she leans towards me.

Whispering to me she says, "Are you okay?"

Hearing her voice sends a jolt up my spine but I've managed to get control of the nausea.

"I think I might actually have a fever, I'm not feeling all that well," I'm able to just get out while still resting my head.

The ringing of the bell startles me, prompting me to raise my head, Sarah is looking at me with worry

"Do you want me to help you to the nurse's office?" She offers as she grabs my arm.

I'm in enough control that her grabbing me just feels like ice on my skin instead of making it ablaze.

"I texted my dad he is on his way, I am just going to go outside and wait for him."

Getting up and grabbing my things I stuff my hands into my pockets hoping the glow has stopped. Walking out into the hallway with Sarah still helping me along we head towards the front doors when I hear a voice behind us.

"Where are you two going?"

Glancing back behind us is Mark and a couple of his jock friends, arms folded and glaring us down.

"He's not feeling well Mark I'm helping him outside so his dad can get him easier," Sarah says for me with a frown on her face.

I can tell that she isn't happy with this guy and doesn't want to talk with him right now. I feel someone separating us and pushing me away, I stagger but have managed to regain some control and stay standing. Sarah steps in front of Mark.

"Leave him alone," she says.

"This has nothing to do with you," he says.

"Right. You see a new kid talking to me and you try immediately to start a fight with him. This is just one example of why we aren't together anymore."

She grabs my arm again and we start to walk away again behind us I can hear a couple of people talking. The school's exit is a hundred feet away. That is a lot of steps. People are whispering.

"Does he even go to school here?"

"I hope so, he's cute."

"Come on Mark we'll get him later," that final one comes from one of the guys near Mark I can't tell which one.

We managed to get out the door and I see Henri's truck come flying into the parking lot peeling gravel everywhere, he is obviously afraid something bad has happened to me. Stopping a few feet away from us waiting for him at the curb, Sarah opens the passenger door and helps me in collapsing into the seat.

"Thank you for helping me out Sarah," I croak out to her.

"It's no problem, look I'm sorry about Mark and I hope you feel better soon," She says as she walks away.

"Did you check yourself out, John?" Henri asks.

"No."

"Stay put I'm going to run in real quick and tell them I'm taking you home," he says as he quickly gets out and jogs inside.

While he is inside I look at myself in the mirror, I'm a bit redder then I thought. Finally, though the first legacy that I can use in combat has formed, I'm sure that Henri will show me how to use it to its fullest soon enough. Coming back outside he is smiling proudly and hops inside.

"Been a shit long wait," he says.

"Huh?" I ask.

He looks over. "A shit long wait," he says again. "For your Legacies."

I laugh. Of all the things Henri has learned to master while on Earth, profanity is not one of them.

"A damn long wait," I correct him.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

He turns down our road.

"So, what next? Does this mean I'll be able to shoot lasers from my hands or what?"

He grins. "It's nice to think so, but no."

"Well, what am I going to do with light? When I'm getting chased am I going to turn and flash it in their eyes? Like that's supposed to make them cower from me or something?"

"Patience," he says. "You aren't supposed to understand it yet. Let's just get home."

I can tell that he has been working. The three chairs from the front porch have been cleared away and all the windows are open. Inside, the sheets over the furniture have been removed, some of the surfaces wiped clean.

He stares at me when we finally get inside to the dining room table.

"What happened?" he asks in that voice I recognize.

The voice that suggests I start giving him some info before we have to plan something else and maybe even move depending on what happened. I start to explain meeting up with Sarah and then eventually getting to class, followed by the emergence of the lights in my palms. Ending with what happened with Mark in the hallway. Henri doesn't look pleased with that last part.

"Will this be an issue?" He asks knowing that I can take care of myself.

"I think that going under the radar isn't going to happen, but no one noticed my hands and I got control of them pretty quickly," I take a breath before continuing.

"I haven't had a chance to find Sam Goode just yet but I think I can get this guy off my back and still get the results we need."

"Very well, we still have a lot to talk about."

"I've never seen you this tired before. Sleep a few hours. We'll talk after."

He nods. "A nap would probably do me some good."

Henri goes into his bedroom and closes the door. I walk outside, pace around the yard for a bit. The sun is behind the trees with a cool wind blowing.

I reach down and feel the three scars on my right ankle, remembering what I am doing all of this for. Three circles that represent the three dead. We are bound to each other by more than mere race. As I feel the scars I try to imagine who they were, whether they were boys or girls, where they were living, how old they were when they died. I try to remember the other kids on the ship with me and give each of them numbers. I think about what it would be like to meet them, hang out with them. What it might have been like if we were still on Lorien. What it might be like if the fate of our entire race wasn't dependent on the survival of so few of us. What it might be like if we weren't all facing death at the hands of our enemies.

It's terrifying to know that I'm next. But we've stayed ahead of them by moving, and running when we needed to. Even though I'm sick of the running I know it's the only reason we're still alive. If we stop, they will find us and while I am ready for a fight, Henri has made sure I know that we don't know what they will through our way and that we don't want to get stuck anywhere. And now that I'm next in line, they have undoubtedly stepped up the search. Surely they must know we are growing stronger, coming into our Legacies.

And then there is the other ankle and the scar to be found there, formed when the Loric charm was last in those precious moments before leaving Lorien. It's the brand that binds us all together.

I walk into my room and lie down on the mattress, I don't have any sheets or blankets down yet. The morning has worn me out and I let my eyes close. When I reopen them the sun is lifted over the tops of the trees. I walk out of the room. Henri is at the kitchen table with his laptop open and I know he's been scanning the news, as he always does, searching for information or stories that might tell us where the others are.

"Did you sleep?" I ask.

"Not much. We have internet now and I haven't checked the news since Florida. It was gnawing at me."

"Anything to report?" I ask.

He shrugs. "A fourteen-year-old in Africa fell from a fourth-story window and walked away without a scratch. There is a fifteen-year-old in Bangladesh claiming to be the Messiah."

I laugh. "I know the fifteen-year-old isn't us. Any chance of the other?"

"Nah. Surviving a four-story drop is no great feat, and besides, if it was one of us they wouldn't have been that careless in the first place," he says, and winks.

I smile and sit across from him. He closes his computer and places his hands on the table. His watch reads 11:36. We've been in Ohio for slightly over half a day and already this much has happened. I hold my palms up. They've completely shut off and are cool

"Do you know what you have?" he asks.

"Lights in my hands."

He chuckles. "It's called Lumen. You'll be able to control the light in time."

"I still don't see what the point is, though."

"There's more to Lumen than mere lights. I promise you."

"What's the rest?"

He walks into his bedroom and returns with a lighter in his hand.

"Do you remember much of your grandparents?" he asks.

Our grandparents are the ones who raise us. We see little of our parents until we reach the age of twenty-five when we have children of our own. The life expectancy for the Loric is around two hundred years, much longer than that of humans, and when children are born, between the parents' ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, the elders are the ones who raise them while the parents continue honing their Legacies.

"A little. Why?"

"Because your grandfather had the same gift."

"I don't remember his hands ever glowing," I say.

Henri shrugs. "He might never have had reason to use it."

"Wonderful," I say. "Sounds like a great gift to have, one I'll never use."

He shakes his head. "Give me your hand."

I give him the right one and he flicks the lighter on, then moves it to touch the tip of my finger with the flame.

"What are you doing?"

"Trust me," he says.

I give my hand to him. He takes hold of it and flicks the lighter on again. He looks into my eyes. Then he smiles. I look down and see that he is holding the flame over the tip of my middle finger. I don't feel a thing.

"Did you feel that?" he asks.

"No."

"Tell me when you do feel something."

He starts at my fingertip again, then moves the flame very slowly up the back of my hand. There is a slight tickle where the flame touches the skin, nothing more. Only when the fire reaches a little past my wrist do I begin to sense the burn. I pull my arm free.

"Ouch."

"Lumen," he says. "You're going to become resistant to fire and heat. Your hands come naturally, but we'll have to train the rest of your body."

A smile spreads across my face. "Resistant to fire and heat," I say. "So I'll never be burned again?"

"Eventually, yes."

"That's awesome!"

"Not such a bad Legacy after all, huh?"

"Not bad at all," I agree. "Now what about these lights? How do I control them?"

"You'll have to be careful not to get worked up for a while. An emotional imbalance will cause them to come right back on again if you get overly nervous, or angry, or sad. Otherwise, I'm not too sure just yet"

"For how long?"

"Until you learn to control them." He closes his eyes and rubs his face with his hands.

"Anyway, I'm going to try to sleep again. We'll talk about your training in a few hours."

After he leaves I stay at the kitchen table, opening and closing my hands, taking deep breaths, and trying to calm everything inside of me so the lights will dim. Of course, it doesn't work.

Everything in the house is still a mess aside from the few things Henri did while I was at school.

I figure that I could help out with the cleaning since I'm not at school, so I start with my room. I dust, wash the windows, sweep the floor. When everything is clean I throw sheets, pillows, and blankets on the bed, then hang and fold my clothes. The dresser is old and rickety, but I fill it and then place the few books I own on top of it. And just like that, a clean room, everything I own put away and in order.

I move to the kitchen, putting away dishes and wiping down the counters. It gives me something to do and takes my mind off of my hands, even though while cleaning I think about Mark James. I've always tried to delay another move for as long as I could. But today was different. I had felt a surge of rage at not lashing out against him when I was pushed. I don't plan on showing my full strength but I also don't plan on being pushed around, it's time that I start to express who I am and show everyone I'm not someone you can just push around.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

A.N. I forgot to mention in my last A.N. but this story will still closely resemble the main story for the most part, at least for the first book. As time goes on I should be adding in more original content before there are major divergences in the story. Names are also as you have seen subject to change, John here will not be the same shy goof he is in the series. I am going into this with the thought of what I believe to have been more likely. Thanks again for listening to my ramble, please enjoy.

Chapter Three-

I wake before the alarm, the house is cool and silent. I lift my hands from under the covers. They are normal, no lights, no glow. I lumber out of bed and into the living room. Henri is at the kitchen table reading the local paper and drinking coffee.

"Good morning," he says.

"How do you feel?"

"Like a million bucks," I say.

I pour myself a bowl of cereal and sit across from him.

"What are you going to do today?" I ask.

"Errands mostly. We're getting low on money. I'm thinking of putting in a transfer at the bank."

Lorien is (or was, depending on how you look at it) a planet rich with natural resources. Some of those resources were precious gems and metals. When we left, each Cêpan was given a sack full of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies to sell when we arrived on Earth. Henri did and then deposited the money into an overseas bank account. I don't know how much there is and I never ask. But I know it's enough to last us ten lifetimes, if not more. Henri makes withdrawals from it once a year, give or take.

"I don't know, though," he continues.

"I don't want to stray too far in case something else happens today."

Not wanting to make a big deal of yesterday, I wave the notion away.

"I'll be fine. Go get paid."

I look out the window. Dawn is breaking, casting a pale light over everything. The truck is covered with dew. It's been a while since we've been through a winter. I don't even own a jacket and have outgrown most of my sweaters.

"It looks cold out," I say.

"Maybe we can go clothes shopping soon."

He nods. "I was thinking about that last night, which is why I need to go to the bank."

"Then go," I say. "Nothing is going to happen today."

I finish the bowl of cereal, drop the dirty dish into the sink, and jump into the shower. Ten minutes later I've dressed in a pair of jeans and a black thermal shirt, the sleeves pulled to my elbows. I look in the mirror, and down at my hands. I feel calm. I need to stay that way. On the way to school, Henri hands me a pair of black biking gloves.

"Make sure you keep these with you at all times. You never know."

I tuck them into my back pocket.

"I shouldn't need them. I feel pretty good. Where did you get these though?"

"I had bought them back in Florida, with your legacies forming I had a suspicion that you might get your grandfather's legacy of Lumen. Good thing I did," Henri says giving me a little grin.

I arrive at school, half an hour later only wanting to do a short jog this morning. Inside, the halls are bustling with activity, students loitering at lockers, talking, laughing. A few look at me and whisper. I don't know whether they just didn't see me yesterday, or if that Mark guy has been spreading rumors. They are likely whispering about both. It is a small school, and in small schools, there is little that isn't readily known by everyone else.

When I reach the main entrance, I turn right and find my locker. It's empty. I have fifteen minutes before sophomore composition begins. I walk by the classroom just to make sure I know where it is.

Out in the hallway, don't see Mark anywhere. I pick a direction and begin walking, just wanting to familiarise myself with the schools' layout looking for any escapes out of the building. People still stare and whisper, but that doesn't bother me. I see him fifty feet ahead of me. All at once, the thrill of adrenaline kicks in. I look down at my hands. They're normal. I'm worried about them turning on, and that worry might just be the thing that does it.

Mark's leaning against a locker with his arms crossed, in the middle of a group, five guys and two girls, all of them talking and laughing. Sarah is sitting on a windowsill about fifteen feet away. She looks radiant again today with her blond hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing a skirt and a gray sweater. She's reading a book, but looks up as I walk towards them she gives me a small smile and a wave. He notices me after I walk by them. Mark is wearing his letterman jacket, and his black hair is carefully styled to look like he rolled straight out of bed and into his clothes. He pushes away from the locker and walks towards me. When he is inches away he stops. Our chests nearly touch and the spicy scent of his cologne fills my nostrils. He is probably six one, now that we are this close I know that we are the same height. We have the same build. Little does he know that what is inside of me is not what is inside of him. I am quicker than he is and far stronger. The thought brings a confident grin to my face.

"You think you can stay in school a little longer today? Or are you going to run off again like a little bitch?"

Snickers spread through the crowd.

"I guess we'll see, won't we?"

"Yeah, I guess we will," he says and moves even closer.

"Did I do something to offend you already? We haven't even been introduced yet" I give him a cocky grin.

He's clenching his teeth now knowing that he doesn't have any valid reasoning behind his dislike of me or at least nothing that he can vocalize to the school. There are probably thirty people around us now. I do not doubt that the entire school will know what has happened within ten minutes of the start of the first period.

"Well I hope that you have a good day," I say.

Walking away I can hear a murmur in the crowd, focusing my senses I can hear him grinding his teeth. The fact that this is the first time I've confronted someone has me grinning like a loon with adrenaline pumping through my veins.

I go to the bathroom, enter an empty stall, and latch the door behind me. I open my hands. A slight glow in the right one. I close my eyes and sigh, focus on breathing slowly. A minute later the glow is gone. I shake my head. I didn't think the Legacy would be that sensitive. I shake my head in disgust and accept the inevitable. I grab the biker gloves out of my back pocket and put them on thankfully they don't look horrible on me and can be ignored. I leave the bathroom and walk the emptying hallway to my classroom. Everybody stares at me when I enter like I am an alien a stranger to their small-town world. I sit in the center of the room, the class going by quickly. When the bell rings I gather my things, drop them into my bag, and pull the straps over my shoulder. I'm still wearing the gloves. When I exit the room I lift the cuff of the right one and peek at my palm. It's still not glowing but I leave them on just in case. I walk the hall at a steady pace. When I enter the classroom Mark is sitting in the same spot I was sitting at yesterday, Sarah beside him. He sneers at me. Trying to act cool, he doesn't notice the gloves.

"What's up, runner? I heard the cross-country team is looking for new members."

"Don't be such a dick," Sarah says to him.

I look at her as I pass, into her blue eyes that make me feel shy and self-conscious, which makes my cheeks warm. The seat I sat in the day before is occupied of course, so I head to the very back right. The class fills and a kid sits next to me. He's wearing a black T-shirt with a NASA logo in the center, army pants, and a pair of Nike tennis shoes. He has disheveled, sandy blond hair and his hazel eyes are magnified by his glasses. He pulls out a notepad filled with diagrams of constellations and planets. He looks at me and doesn't try to hide the fact that he is staring.

"How goes it?" I ask.

He shrugs.

"Cool gloves, do you ride a dirt bike or something?"

I open my mouth to answer, but Mrs. Burton starts the class. During most of it, the guy beside me draws pictures that seem to be his interpretation of what Martians look like. Small bodies; big heads, hands, and eyes. The same stereotypical representations that are usually shown in movies. At the bottom of every drawing, he writes his name in small letters: SAM GOODE. He notices me watching, and I look away.

'That was easier than I thought, I've already found him and already ascertained some of his interests," I internalize.

As Mrs. Burton lectures on Saturn's sixty-one moons, I look over at the back of Mark's head. He's hunched over his desk, writing. Then he sits up and passes a note to Sarah. She flicks it back at him without reading it. It makes me smile. Mrs. Burton turns off the lights and starts a video. The rotating planets being projected on the screen at the front of the class make me think of Lorien. It is one of the eighteen life-sustaining planets in the universe. Earth is another. Mogadore, unfortunately, is another.

Lorien. I close my eyes and allow myself to remember. An old planet, a hundred times older than Earth. Every problem that Earth now has—pollution, overpopulation, global warming, food shortages—Lorien also had. At one point, twenty-five thousand years ago, the planet began to die. This was long before the ability to travel through the universe, and the people of Lorien had to do something in order to survive. Slowly but surely they made a commitment to ensure that the planet would forever remain self-sustaining by changing their way of life, doing away with everything harmful—guns and bombs, poisonous chemicals, pollutants—and over time the damage began to reverse itself. With the benefit of evolution, over thousands of years, certain citizens—the Garde—developed powers in order to protect the planet, and to help it. It was as though Lorien rewarded my ancestors for their foresight, for their respect.

Mrs. Burton flicks the lights on. I open my eyes and look at the clock. Class is almost over. I feel calm again, I have six periods left in the day. I have to remain at peace through all of them. The first half of the day passes without incident. I remain calm, and likewise have no further encounters with Mark. At lunch, I fill my tray with the basics, then find an empty table at the back of the room. When I'm halfway through a slice of pizza, Sam Goode, the kid from astronomy class, sits across from me.

"Are you really fighting Mark after school?" he asks.

I shake my head. "No."

"That's what people are saying."

"They're wrong."

He shrugs, keeps eating he opens his mouth to say something else but a giant meatball that I'm sure is aimed for me comes out of nowhere and hits him in the back of the head. His hair and shoulders are covered with bits of meat and spaghetti sauce. Some of it has splattered onto me. While he starts cleaning himself off a second meatball flies through the air. I was paying attention this time and had already turned around, dodging it was child's play as I look over at where it came from. A smiling group of jocks which of course includes Mark. Oohs filter throughout the cafeteria. I stand and wipe the small amounts of sauce off of me anger coursing through me. In that instant, I don't care about my hands, but there isn't a chance in hell I'm letting this slide.

"Don't," Sam says.

"If you fight then they'll never leave you alone."

I start walking. A hush falls over the cafeteria. A hundred sets of eyes focus on me. My face twists into a scowl. Seven people are sitting at Mark James's table, all guys. All seven of them stand as I approach.

"You got a problem?" one of them asks me.

He is big, built like an offensive lineman. Patches of reddish hair grow on his cheeks and chin as though he's trying to grow a beard. It makes his face look dirty. Like the rest of them, he's wearing a letterman jacket. He crosses his arms and stands in my way.

"This doesn't concern you," I say.

"You'll have to go through me to get to him."

"I will if you don't get out of my way."

"I don't think you can," he says.

I bring my knee straight up into his gut. His breath catches in his throat, and he doubles over. The whole lunchroom gasps.

"I warned you," I say, and I step over him and walk straight for Mark.

Just as I reach him I'm grabbed from behind. I turn and it's the lunchroom attendant.

"That'll be enough, boys."

"Look what he just did to Kevin, Mr. Johnson," Mark says.

Kevin is still on the ground holding himself. His face is beet red.

"Send him to the principal!"

"Shut up, Mark. All four of you are going. Don't think I didn't see you throw those meatballs," he says and looks at Kevin still on the floor.

"Get up."

Sam appears from nowhere. He has tried to wipe the mess from his hair and shoulders. The big pieces are gone, but the sauce has only smeared. I'm not sure why he's here. I look down at my hands, ready to flee at the first hint of light, but to my surprise, they're off. Was it because of the urgency of the situation, allowing me to approach without preemptive nerves? I don't know. Kevin stands and looks at me. He is shaky, still having trouble breathing. He grips the shoulder of the guy beside him for support.

"You'll get yours," he says.

"I doubt it," I say.

I'm still scowling, the four of us walk to the principal's office. Mr. Harris is sitting behind his desk eating a microwavable lunch, a napkin tucked into the neck of his shirt.

"Sorry to interrupt. We just had a slight disruption during lunch. I'm sure these boys will be happy to explain," the lunchroom attendant says.

Mr. Harris sighs, pulls the napkin from his shirt, and throws it in the trash. He pushes his lunch to the side of his desk with the back of his hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson." Mr. Johnson leaves, closing the office door behind him, and the four of us sit.

"So who wants to start?" the principal asks, irritation in his voice. I stay silent. The muscles in Mr. Harris's jaw are flexed. After ten seconds of silence, Mark starts.

"Somebody hit Sam with a meatball. He thinks it was me, so he kneed Kevin in the stomach."

Mr. Harris turns to Kevin "You okay?" Kevin, whose face is still red, nods.

"So who threw the meatball?" Mr. Harris asks me.

I say nothing, still seething, irritated at the whole scene. I take a deep breath to try to calm myself.

"I don't know after Sam got hit I stood up and turned to look where it came from, just as I did another flies by me it came from their table," I say.

My anger has reached new levels. I don't want to have to deal with Mark through Mr. Harris, and would rather take care of the situation myself, away from the principal's office. Sam looks at me in surprise. Mr. Harris throws his hands up in frustration.

"Well then, why in the hell are you boys here?"

"That's a good question," says Mark.

"We were simply eating our lunch."

Sam speaks. "Mark threw it. I saw him and so did Mr. Johnson."

I look over at Sam. I know he didn't see it because his back was turned the first time, and the second time he was busy cleaning himself off. But I'm impressed at him saying so, for his taking my side knowing it will put him in danger with Mark and his friends. Mark scowls at him.

"Come on, Mr. Harris," Mark pleads. "I have the interview with the Gazette tomorrow and the game on Friday. I don't have time to worry about crap like this. I'm being accused of something I didn't do. It's hard to stay focused with this shit going on."

"Watch your mouth!" Mr. Harris yells.

"It's true."

"I believe you," the principal says, and sighs very heavily.

He looks at Kevin, who's still struggling to catch his breath.

"Do you need to go to the nurse?"

"I'll be fine," Kevin says. Mr. Harris nods.

"You two forget about the lunchroom incident, and Mark, get your mind straight. We've been trying to get this article for a while now. They might even put us on the front page. Imagine that, the front page of the Gazette," he says, and smiles.

"Thank you," Mark says.

"I'm excited about it."

"Good. Now, you two can leave."

They go, and Mr. Harris gives a hard look at Sam. Sam holds his gaze.

"Tell me, Sam. And I want the truth. Did you see Mark throw the meatball?"

Sam's eyes narrow. He doesn't look away. "Yes."

The principal shakes his head.

"I don't believe you, Sam. And because of that, here is what we are going to do."

He looks at me.

"So a meatball was thrown—"

"Two," Sam interjects.

"What?!" Mr. Harris asks, again glowering at Sam.

"There were two meatballs thrown, not one."

Mr. Harris slams his fist on the desk.

"Who cares how many there were! John, you assaulted Kevin. An eye for an eye. We'll let it go at that. Do you understand me?"

His face is red and I know it's pointless to argue.

"Yep," I say.

"I don't want to see you two in here again," he says.

"You're both dismissed."

We leave his office.

"Be careful," I tell him. "You'll be on Mark's radar now."

I have home economics after lunch—not because I necessarily care about cooking, but because it was either that or choir. And while I have many strengths and powers that are considered exceptional on Earth, singing is not one of them. So I walk into home ec and take a seat taking my gloves off knowing it will be a bit easier to cook without them on. It is a small room, and just before the bell rings Sarah walks in and sits beside me.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi."

Blood rushes to my face and my shoulders stiffen. I grab a pencil and begin to twirl it in my right hand while my left bends back the corners of my notepad. My heart is pounding. Stay calm, I think. She's just a girl. Sarah is looking at me. Everything inside of me feels as though it is turning to mush. She may be the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

"I'm sorry Mark is being a jerk to you," she says.

I shrug. "It's not your fault."

"You guys aren't really going to fight, are you?"

"I don't want to," I say.

She nods. "He can be a real dick. He always tries to show he's boss."

"It's a sign of insecurity," I say.

"He's not insecure. Just a dick."

Sure he is. But I don't want to argue with Sarah. Besides, she speaks with such certainty that I almost doubt myself. She looks at the spots of spaghetti sauce that have dried on my shirt, then reaches over and pulls a hardened piece from my hair.

"Thanks," I say.

She sighs. "I'm sorry that happened." She looks me in the eye. "We're not together, you know?"

"No?"

She shakes her head. I'm intrigued that she felt the need to make that clear to me. After ten minutes of instruction on how to make pancakes—none of which I actually hear—the teacher, Mrs. Benshoff, pairs Sarah and me together. We enter a door at the back of the room that leads to the kitchen, which is about three times the size of the actual classroom. It contains ten different kitchen units, complete with refrigerators, cabinets, sinks, ovens. Sarah walks into one, grabs an apron from a drawer, and puts it on.

"Will you tie this for me?" she asks.

I pull too much on the bow and have to tie it again. I can feel the contours of her lower back beneath my fingers. When hers is tied I put mine on and start to tie it myself.

"Here, silly," she says, and then takes the straps and does it for me.

"Thanks."

I try cracking the first egg but do it too hard, and none of the egg actually makes it into the bowl. Sarah laughs. She places a new egg in my hand and takes my hand in hers and shows me how to crack it on the rim of the bowl. She leaves her hand on mine for a second longer than is necessary. She looks at me and smiles.

"Like that."

She mixes the batter and strands of hair fall into her face while she works. I desperately want to reach over and tuck the loose strands behind her ear, but I don't. Mrs. Benshoff comes into our kitchen to check our progress. So far so good, which is all thanks to Sarah, since I have no idea what I'm doing.

"How do you like Ohio so far?" Sarah asks.

"It's okay. I could have used a better first day of school."

She smiles. "Are you feeling any better?"

"I feel super," I laugh. "I have really bad asthma. For some reason I had an attack yesterday mixed in with the fever was just a bit too much," I say, and feel regret at having to lie.

I don't want her to see weakness within me, especially weakness that is untrue.

"Well, I'm glad you feel better."

We make four pancakes. Sarah stacks all of them onto one plate. She dumps an absurd amount of maple syrup over them and hands me a fork. I look at the other students. Most are eating off of two plates. I reach over and cut a bite.

"Not bad," I say while chewing.

I'm not hungry in the least, but I help her eat all of them. We alternate bites until the plate is empty. I have a stomachache when we finish. After she cleans the dishes and I dry them. When the bell rings, we walk out of the room together.

"You know, you're not so bad for a sophomore," she says, and nudges me. "I don't care what they say."

"Thanks, and you're not so bad yourself for a—whatever you are."

"I'm a junior."

We walk in silence for a few steps. "You're not really going to fight Mark at the end of the day, are you?

"Look at me," I say, and motion to what's left of the sauce on my shirt.

She shrugs. I stop at my locker. She takes note of the number.

"Well, you shouldn't," she says.

"I don't want to."

She rolls her eyes. "Boys and their fights. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Have a good rest of the day," I say.

After my ninth-period class, American history, I take slow steps to my locker. I think of just leaving the school quietly, without looking for Mark. But then I realize I will forever be labeled a coward. I get to my locker and empty my bag of the books I don't need. Then I just stand there and feel the nervousness that begins to course through me. My hands are still normal and still covered by the gloves. I take a deep breath and close the locker door.

"Hi," I hear, the voice startling me. It's Sarah. She glances behind her and looks back at me. "I have something for you."

"It's not more pancakes, is it? I still feel like I'm about to burst."

She laughs nervously. "It's not pancakes.

"Okay," I say. She looks behind her again and quickly reaches into the front pocket of her bag. She pulls out a small piece of paper and hands it over to me

"What's this?"

"That's a piece of paper," she says while giving me a coy smile.

Laughing I begin to open the piece of paper, seeing just a couple of numbers on it I look up at her with a confused look on my face.

"My phone number," she says before continuing. "I know that you are new here and it can be tough moving to a new place without any friends so I hope that you can count me as one and that we can stay in contact."

I can't believe she went to such lengths to help me—she barely knows me. But I'm not complaining.

"Thank you that means a lot."

"You're welcome," she says, then turns and rushes down the hall.

I watch her the whole way, unable to stop smiling. When I head out, Mark James and eight of his friends meet me in the lobby.

"Well, well, well," Mark says. "Actually made it through the day, huh?"

"Sure did. Thank you for your concern." I say.

I pass by him, head down the hall, and walk out of the building.


	4. Chapter 4

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Four-

Henri is parked outside, I pick his car out of those in the lot. I jump in the truck, still smiling.

"Good day?" he asks.

"Not bad."

"No fighting?"

"Nothing major."

He looks at me suspiciously.

"Do I even want to know what that means?"

"Probably not."

"Did your hands come on at all?"

"Only once and I had control it shortly afterward," I say.

"How was your day?"

He follows the driveway around the school.

"It was good. I drove an hour and a half to Columbus after dropping you off."

"Why Columbus?"

"Big banks there. I didn't want to draw suspicion by requesting a transfer for an amount of money larger than what is collectively contained within the entire town."

I nod. "Smart thinking."

He pulls onto the road.

"So are you going to tell me her name?"

"Huh?" I ask.

"There has to be a reason for that ridiculous smile of yours. The most obvious reason is a girl."

"How'd you know?"

"John, my friend, back on Lorien this ol' Cêpan was quite the ladies' man."

"Get out of here," I say. "There is no such thing as a ladies' man on Lorien."

He nods approvingly. "You've been paying attention."

The Loric are a mostly monogamous people. When we fall in love, it's usually for life though there are exceptions. Marriage comes around the age of twenty-five, give or take, and has nothing to do with law. It's based more on promise and commitment than anything else. Henri was married for twenty years before he left with me. Eleven years have passed but I know he still misses his wife every single day.

"So who is she?" he asks.

"Her name is Sarah Hart. She's the daughter of the real estate agent you got the house from. She's in two of my classes. She's a junior."

He nods. "Pretty?"

"Absolutely. And smart."

"Yeah," he draws out slowly.

"I've been expecting this for a long time now. Just keep in mind that we might have to leave at a moment's notice."

"I know," I say, and the rest of the trip home is made in silence.

When I get home, the Loric Chest is sitting on the kitchen table. It's the size of a microwave oven, almost perfectly square, a foot and a half by a foot and a half. Excitement shoots through me. I walk up to it and grab the lock in my hand. It's been a while since we got in here, I still remember most of its contents a Diamond bladed dagger and a red shield bracelet, a couple of glass orbs that show the solar system Henri says it's called the macrocosm, and a blue ice cube that gives water sustenance.

Henri walks over to the chest and prompts me to put my hand on the lock. He presses his palm against the other side of the lock and interlocks his fingers with mine. A second passes. The lock snaps open.

"Amazing!" I say.

It's awesome seeing it happen every time, it never gets old.

"It's protected by a Loric charm, just like you are. It can't be broken. You could run over it with a steam-roller and it wouldn't even be dented. Only the two of us can open it together. Unless I die; then you can open it yourself."

"Well," I say, "I hope that doesn't happen."

I try to lift the top of the box, but Henri reaches over and stops me.

"Not yet," he says. "Go sit on the couch."

"Henri, come on."

"Just trust me," he says.

I shake my head and sit down. He opens the box and removes a rock that is probably six inches long, two inches thick. He relocks the box, then brings the rock over to me. It is perfectly smooth and oblong, clear on the outside but cloudy in the center.

"What is it?" I ask.

"A Loric crystal."

"What's it for?"

"Hold it," he says, handing it to me.

The second my hands come into contact with it both lights snap on in my palms. They are even brighter than the day before. The rock begins to warm. I hold it up to look more closely at it. The cloudy mass in the center is swirling, turning in on itself like a wave. I can also feel the pendant around my neck heating up. I'm thrilled by all this new development. My whole life has been spent impatiently waiting for my powers to arrive. Holding a crystal that contains what looks like a ball of smoke in its center, and knowing my hands are resistant to heat and fire, and that more Legacies are on the way that will then be followed by my major power (the power that will allow me to fight)—well, it's all pretty cool and exciting. I can't wipe the smile from my face.

"What is happening to it?"

"It's tied to your Legacy. Your touch activates it. If you weren't developing Lumen, then the crystal itself would light up the way your hands are. Instead, it's the other way around. It's the reason why I bought those gloves, I saw this stone and figured that the elders knew you would attain Lumen somehow."

I stare at the crystal, watching the smoke circle and glow.

"Shall we start?" Henri asks.

I nod my head rapidly. "Hell, yes."

The day has turned cold. The house is silent aside from the occasional gust of wind rattling the windows. I lie on my back on top of the wooden coffee table. My hands dangle over the sides. At some point, Henri will build a fire beneath them both. My breathing is slow and steady, as Henri has instructed.

"You have to keep your eyes closed," he says.

"Just listen to the wind. There might be a slight burning in your arms when I drag the crystal up them. Ignore it as best as you can."

I listen to the wind blow through the trees outside. I can somehow feel them sway and bend. Henri begins with my right hand. He presses the crystal against the back of it, then pushes it up my wrist and onto my forearm. There is a burn as he has predicted, but not enough of one to make me pull my arm free.

"Let your mind drift, John. Go where you need to go."

I don't know what he's talking about, but I try to clear my mind and breathe slowly. All at once, I feel myself drift away. From somewhere I can feel the sun's warmth upon my face, and a wind far warmer than what is blowing beyond our walls. When I open my eyes I'm no longer in Ohio. I'm above a vast expanse of treetops, nothing but jungle as far as I can see. Blue sky, the sun beating down, a sun almost double the size of Earth's. A warm, soft wind blows through my hair. Down below, rivers forge deep ravines that cut through the greenery. I am floating above one of them. Animals of all shapes and sizes—some long and slender, some with short arms and stout bodies, some with hair and some with dark-colored skin that looks rough to the touch—are drinking from the cool waters at the river's bank. There is a bend in the horizon line far off in the distance, and I know that I am on Lorien. It's a planet ten times smaller than Earth, and it's possible to see the curve of its surface when looking from far enough away. Somehow I'm able to fly. I rush up and twist in the air, then torpedo down and speed along the river's surface. The animals lift their heads and watch with curiosity, but not with fear. Lorien in its prime, covered with growth, inhabited by animals. In a way, it looks like what I imagine Earth looked like millions of years ago when the land ruled the lives of its creatures before humans arrived and started ruling the land. Lorien in its prime; I know that it no longer looks like this today. I must be living a memory. Surely it isn't my own? And then the day skips ahead to darkness. Off in the distance, a great display of fireworks begins, rising high in the sky and exploding into shapes of animals and trees with the dark sky and the moons and a million stars serving as a brilliant backdrop.

"I can feel their desperation," I hear from somewhere. I turn and look around me. There is nobody there. "They know where one of the others is, but the charm still holds. They can't touch her until they've killed you first. But they continue to track her."

I fly up high, then dip low, seeking the source of the voice. Where is it coming from?

"Now is when we have to be most cautious. Now is when we have to stay ahead of them."

I push forward towards the fireworks. The voice unnerves me. Perhaps the loud booms will drown it out.

"They had hoped to kill us all well before your Legacies developed. But we've kept hidden. We have to stay calm. The first three panicked. The first three are dead. We have to stay smart and cautious. When we panic is when mistakes are made. They know it will only get harder for them the more developed the rest of you are, and when you are all fully developed, the war will be waged. We will hit back and seek our revenge, and they know it."

I see the bombs fall from miles above Lorien's surface. Explosions shake the ground and the air, screams carry on the wind, bursts of fire sweep across the land, and the trees. The forest burns. There must be a thousand different aircraft, all dropping from high in the sky to land on Lorien. Mogadorian soldiers pour out, carrying guns and grenades that hold powers far greater than what is used in warfare here. They are taller than we are, and still, look similar except in the face. They have no pupils and their irises are a deep magenta color, some of them black. Dark, heavy circles rim their eyes and there's a pallor to their skin—an almost discolored, bruised quality to it. Their teeth glint between lips that never seem to close, teeth that look filed, coming to an unnatural point. The beasts of Mogadore come off the planes close behind, the same cold look in their eyes. Some of them are as big as houses, razor teeth showing, roaring so loud that it hurts my ears.

"We got careless, John. That is how we were defeated so easily," he says.

I know now that the voice I'm hearing is Henri's. But he is nowhere to be seen, and I can't take my eyes off the killing and the destruction below me to look for him. People are running everywhere, fighting back. As many Mogadorians as Loric are being killed. But the Loric are losing the battle against the beasts, which are killing our people by the dozens: breathing fire, gnashing teeth, viciously swinging arms and tails. Time is speeding along, going much faster than normal. How much has passed? An hour? Two? The Garde lead the fight, their Legacies on full display. Some are flying, some able to run so fast that they become a blur, and some disappear entirely. Lasers shoot from hands, bodies become engulfed in flames, storm clouds are brewed coupled with harsh winds above those able to control the weather. But they are still losing. They are outnumbered five hundred to one. Their powers are not enough.

"Our guard had dropped. The Mogadorians had planned well, picking that exact moment when they knew we were at our most vulnerable when the planet's Elders were gone. Pittacus Lore, the greatest of them, their leader, had assembled them before the attack. Nobody knows what happened to them, or where they went, or if they are even still alive. Perhaps the Mogadorians took them out first, and once the Elders were out of the way, that is when they attacked. All we really know is that there was a column of shimmering white light that shot into the sky as far as anyone could see on the day the Elders assembled. It lasted the entire day, then vanished. We, as a people, should have recognized it as a sign that something was amiss, but we didn't. We have no one to blame but ourselves for what happened. We were lucky to get anyone off the planet, much less nine young Garde who might someday continue the fight, and keep our race alive."

Off in the distance, a ship shoots high and fast into the air, a blue stream following behind it. I watch it from my vantage point in the sky until it disappears. There is something familiar about it. And then it dawns on me: I am on that ship, and Henri is, too. It's the ship carrying us to Earth. The Loric must have known they were beaten. Why else would they send us away? Useless slaughter. That is how it all looks to me. I land on the ground and walk through a ball of fire. Rage sweeps through me. Men and women are dying, Garde, and Cêpan, along with defenseless children. How can this be tolerated? How can the hearts of the Mogadorians be so hardened as to do all this? And why was I spared? I lunge at a nearby soldier but go straight through him and fall down. Everything I am witnessing has already happened. I'm a spectator of our own demise and there's nothing I can do. I turn around and face a beast that must be forty feet tall, broad-shouldered, with red eyes and horns twenty feet in length. Drool falls from its long, sharp teeth. It lets out a roar and then lunges. It passes through me but takes out dozens of Loric around me. Just like that, every one of them is gone. And the beast keeps going, taking out more Loric. Through the scene of destruction, I hear a scratching noise, something separate from the carnage on Lorien. I am drifting away, or drifting back. Two hands press down upon my shoulders. My eyes snap open and I'm back in our home in Ohio. My arms are dangling over the coffee table. Inches below them are two cauldrons of fire, and both of my hands and forearms are completely submerged in the flames. I don't feel the effects at all. Henri stands over me. The scratching I heard a minute ago is coming from the front porch.

"What is that?" I whisper, sitting up.

"I don't know," he says.

We are both silent, straining to listen. Three more scratches at the door. Henri looks down at me.

"There's somebody out there," he says.

I look at the clock on the wall. Nearly an hour has passed. I'm sweating, out of breath, unsettled by the scenes of slaughter I just witnessed. For the first time in my life, I truly understand what happened on Lorien. Before tonight the events were just part of another story, not all that different from the many I have read in books. But now I have seen the blood, the tears, the dead. I have seen the destruction. It's a part of who I am. Outside, darkness has set in. Three more scratches at the door, a low groan. We both jump. I immediately think of the low groans I heard coming from the beasts. Henri rushes into the kitchen and grabs a knife from the drawer beside the sink.

"Get ready to strike if they get inside."

"What, why?"

"Because I said so."

"You think that little knife is going to take down a Mogadorian?"

"If I hit them straight in the heart it will. Now get down."

I scramble off the coffee table and crouch behind the sofa. The two cauldrons of fire are still going, faint visions of Lorien still moving through my mind. An impatient growl comes from the other side of the front door. There is no mistaking that somebody, or something, is out there. My heart races.

"Keep down," Henri says.

I lift my head so that I can peer over the back of the couch. All that blood, I think. Surely they knew they were outmatched. But they fought to the end anyway, dying to save each other, dying to save Lorien. Henri grips the knife tightly. He slowly reaches for the brass knob. Anger sweeps through me. I hope it is one of them. Let a Mogadorian come through that door. He'll meet his match. There's no way I'm staying behind this couch. I reach over and grab one of the cauldrons, thrust my hand into it, and pull out a burning piece of wood with a pointed end. It's cool to the touch, but the fire burns on, sweeping over and around my hand. I hold the piece of wood like a dagger. Let them come, I think. There will be no more running. Henri looks over at me, takes a deep breath, and rips the front door open.

Every muscle in my body is flexed and tensed. Henri jumps through the doorway and I am ready to follow. I can feel the thud-thud-thud in my chest. My fingers are white-knuckled around the piece of wood still burning. A gust of wind bursts through the door and the fire dances in my hand and crawls up my wrist. No one is there. All at once, Henri's body relaxes and he chuckles, looking down at his feet. There, looking up at Henri through the tops of his eyes is a dog wagging his tail and paws at the ground. I can tell that he is a German Shepherd I can't tell how old he is though. Henri reaches down and pets him; then the dog pushes past and trots into the house with his tongue dangling.

"What's he doing here?" I ask.

"He's probably trying to find a warm place to stay?"

I put the piece of wood back and wipe my hand on my jeans, leaving a trail of black ash down the front. The dog sits at my feet and looks up expectantly, his tail thumping against the hardwood floor. I sit on the couch and watch both fires burn. Now that the excitement of the situation is over, my mind goes back to what I just saw in my vision. I can still hear the screams in my ears, still, see the way the blood shimmered in the grass in the moonlight, still see the bodies and fallen trees, the red glow in the eyes of the beasts of Mogadore, and the terror in the eyes of the Loric. I look at Henri.

"I saw what happened. At least the beginning of it."

He nods. "I thought you might."

"I could hear your voice. Were you talking to me?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand," I say. "It was a massacre. There was too much hatred for them to only be interested in our resources. There was more to it than that."

Henri sighs and sits on the coffee table across from me. The dog jumps into my lap. He's huge and filthy, his coat stiff and oily under my hand. There is a tag in the shape of a football attached to the front of his collar. It's an old tag, most of the brown paint worn away. I take it in my hand, the number 19 on one side, the name BERNIE KOSAR on the other.

"Bernie Kosar," I say.

The dog wags his tail.

"I guess that's his name, same as that dude in the poster on my wall. Popular guy around here, I guess."

I run my hand down his back. "He doesn't seem like he has a home," I say. "And he's hungry."

'Do you have a home buddy,' I send a mental thought to him

'With you!' It's like he shouts it out in excitement.

Laughing, "He says that his home is with me."

Henri nods. "Well alright then, seems like you've both made up your minds then."

He looks down at Bernie Kosar. The dog stretches out, rests his chin on his paws, and closes his eyes. I flip open the lighter and hold the flame over my fingers, then my palm, then run it up the underside of my arm. Only when the flame is an inch or two away from my shoulder do I feel the burn. Whatever Henri has done has worked, and my resistance has spread. I wonder how long it will take until all of me becomes resistant.

"So what happened?" I ask.

Henri takes a deep breath. "I've had those visions, too. So real it's like you're there."

"I never realized how bad it all was. I mean, I know you had told me, but I didn't truly understand it until I saw it with my own eyes."

"The Mogadorians are different than we are, secretive and manipulative, untrusting of almost everything. They have certain powers, but they're not powers like ours. They are gregarious and thrive in crowded cities. The more densely populated, the better. That is why you and I stay out of cities now, even when living in one might make it easier to blend in. It would make it a hell of a lot easier for them to blend in as well.

"About a hundred years ago Mogadore began to die, much like Lorien did twenty-five thousand years before that. They didn't respond the way we did, though—didn't understand it the way the human population is beginning to now. They ignored it. They killed their oceans and flooded their rivers and lakes with waste and sewage to keep adding to their cities. The vegetation started to die, which caused the herbivores to die, and then the carnivores weren't far behind. They knew they had to do something drastic."

Henri closes his eyes, remains silent for a full minute. "Do you know the closest life-sustaining planet to Mogadore?" he finally asks.

"Yes, it's Lorien. Or was, I guess."

Henri nods. "Yes, it is Lorien. And I'm sure you know now that it was our resources they were after."

I nod. Bernie Kosar lifts his head and lets out a deep yawn. Henri heats a cooked chicken breast in the microwave, cuts it into strips, then carries the plate back to the couch and sets it in front of the dog. He eats with ferocity, as though he hasn't eaten in days.

"There are a large number of Mogadorians on Earth," Henri continues.

"I don't know how many are here, but I can feel them when I sleep. Sometimes I can see them in my dreams. I can never tell where they are, or what they are saying. But I see them. And I don't think the six of you are the only reason there are so many of them here."

"What do you mean? Why else would they be here?"

Henri looks me in the eye. "Do you know what the second-closest life-sustaining planet is to Mogadore?"

I nod. "It's Earth, isn't it?"

"Mogadore is double the size of Lorien, but Earth is five times the size of Mogadore. In terms of defense, Earth is better prepared for an offensive because of its size. The Mogadorians will need to understand this planet better before they can attack. I can't necessarily tell you how we were defeated so easily because there's much of it I still don't understand. But I can say for sure that part of it was a combination of their knowledge of our planet and our people and the fact that we had no defense other than our intelligence and the Garde's Legacies. Say what you will about the Mogadorians, but they are brilliant strategists when it comes to war."

We sit through another silence, the wind still roaring outside.

"I don't think they're interested in taking Earth's resources," Henri says.

I sigh and look up at him. "Why not?"

"Mogadore is still dying. Even though they've patched the more pressing matters, the planet's death is inevitable, and they know it. I think they're planning to kill the humans. I think they want to make Earth their permanent home."

I bathe Bernie Kosar after dinner, using shampoo and conditioner. I brush him with an old comb left in one of the drawers from the last tenant. He looks and smells much better, but his collar still stinks. I throw it away. Before going to bed I hold open the front door for him, but he isn't interested in going back outside. Instead, he lies down on the floor and rests his chin on his front paws. I can feel his desire to stay in the house with us I smile. A half-hour later I crawl into bed and Bernie Kosar jumps up with me and curls into a ball at my feet. He is snoring within minutes. I lie on my back for a while, staring into the darkness, a million different thoughts swimming in my head. Images from the war: the greedy, hungry look of the Mogadorians; the angry, hard look of the beasts; the death and the blood. I think of the beauty of Lorien. Will, it again sustain life, or will Henri and I go on waiting here on Earth forever? I try to push the thoughts and images from my mind, but they don't stay gone for very long. I get up and pace for a while. Bernie Kosar lifts his head and watches me, but then drops it and falls back to sleep. I sigh, grab my phone from the nightstand and go through it to make sure Mark James didn't mess with anything. Henri's number is still there, but it is no longer the only entry. Another number, listed under the name of "Sarah Hart" has been added, I had done so on the drive home. I close the phone, set it on the nightstand, and smile. Two minutes pass and I check my phone again to make sure it didn't disappear. I snap it shut and set it down, only to lift it again five minutes later just to look at her number again. I don't know how long it takes to fall asleep, but I eventually do. When I wake in the morning my phone is still in my hand, resting against my chest.


	5. Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Five-

Bernie Kosar is scratching at my bedroom door when I wake. I let him outside. He patrols the yard, rushing along with his nose to the ground. Once he's covered all four corners he bolts across the yard and disappears into the woods. I close the door and jump into the shower. I walk out ten minutes later and he's back inside, sitting on the couch. His tail wags when he sees me.

"You let him in?" I ask Henri, who is at the kitchen table with his laptop open and four newspapers stacked in front of him.

"Yes."

After a quick breakfast, we head out. Bernie Kosar rushes ahead of us, then stops and sits looking up at the passenger door of the truck.

"Apparently he's no stranger to car rides. Let him in."

I open the door and he jumps in. He sits in the middle seat with his tongue dangling. When we pull out of the driveway he moves into my lap and paws at the window. I roll it down and he sticks half his body out, mouth still open, the wind flapping his ears. Three miles later Henri pulls into the school. I open the door and Bernie Kosar jumps out ahead of me. I lift him back into the truck but he jumps right back out. I lift him back in again and have to block him from jumping out while I close the truck door. He stands on his hind legs with his front paws on the ledge of the door, the window still down. I pat him on the head.

"Have your gloves?" Henri asks.

"Yep."

"Phone?"

"Yep."

"How do you feel?"

"I feel good," I say.

"Okay. Call me if you have any sort of trouble."

He pulls away and Bernie Kosar watches from the back window until the truck disappears around the turn. I feel a similar nervousness as I did the day before, but for different reasons. Part of me wants to see Sarah right away, though part of me hopes that I don't see her at all. I'm not sure what I'll say to her. What if I can't think of anything at all and stand there looking foolish? What if she's with Mark when I see her? Should I acknowledge her and risk another confrontation, or just walk by and pretend that I don't see either of them? At the very least I'll see them both in second period. There's no getting around that. I head to my locker. My bag is filled with books I was supposed to read the night before but never opened. Too many thoughts and images running through my head. They haven't gone away and it's hard to imagine they ever will. It was all so different from what I expected. Death isn't like what they show you in the movies. The sounds, the looks, the smells. So different. At my locker, I notice immediately that something's off. The metal handle is covered with dirt, or what looks like dirt. I'm not sure if I should open it, but then I take a deep breath and force the handle up. The locker is half-filled with manure and as I swing the door open, much of it comes pouring out onto the floor, I manage to jump back before it ends up covering my shoes. The smell is horrendous. I slam the door shut. Sam Goode was standing behind it and his sudden appearance from out of nowhere startles me. He is looking forlorn, wearing a white NASA T-shirt only slightly different from the one he wore yesterday.

"Hi, Sam," I say.

He looks down at the pile of manure on the floor, then back at me.

"You, too?" I ask. He nods.

"I'm going to the principal's office. Do you want to come?" He shakes his head, then turns and walks away without saying a word.

I walk to Mr. Harris's office, knock on his door, then enter without waiting for his reply. He is sitting behind his desk, wearing a tie that is tiled with the school mascot, no less than twenty tiny pirate heads scattered across the front of it. He smiles proudly at me.

"It's a big day, John," he says.

I don't know what he is talking about.

"The reporters from the Gazette should be here within the hour. Frontpage!"

Then I remember Mark James's big interview with the local paper.

"You must be very proud," I say.

"I'm proud of each and every one of Paradise's students." The smile doesn't leave his face. He leans back in his chair, locks his fingers together, and rests his hands on his stomach. "What can I do for you?"

"I just wanted to let you know that my locker was filled with manure this morning."

"What do you mean 'filled'?"

"I mean the whole thing was full of manure."

"With manure?" he asks confusedly.

"Yes." He laughs.

I'm taken aback by his total lack of regard, and anger surges through me. My face is warm.

"I wanted to let you know so it could be cleaned. Sam Goode's locker is filled with it, too."

He sighs and shakes his head. "I'll send Mr. Hobbs, the janitor, down immediately and we'll make a full investigation."

"We both know who did it, Mr. Harris."

He flashes a patronizing grin at me. "I'll handle the investigation, Mr. Benson."

There's no point in saying anything further, so I walk out of his office and head to the bathroom to run cold water over my hands and face. I have to calm down. Maybe I should do nothing at all, just let it slide. Will that end it? And besides, what other choice is there? I'm outmatched and my only ally is a hundred-pound sophomore with a penchant for the extraterrestrial. Maybe that isn't the whole truth—maybe I have another ally in Sarah Hart.

I look down. My hands are fine, no glow. I walk out of the bathroom. The janitor is already sweeping the manure from my locker, lifting out books, and placing them in the trash. I walk past him and into the classroom and wait for class to start. Rules of grammar are discussed, the main topic being the difference between a gerund and a verb, and why a gerund is not a verb. I pay closer attention than I did the day before, but as the end of the period nears I start to get nervous about the next class. But not because I might see Mark…because I might see Sarah. Will she smile at me again today? I think it'll be best to arrive before she does so I can find my seat and watch her walk in. That way I can see if she says hello to me first.

When the bell rings, I dash out of class and rush down the hall. I'm the first one to enter astronomy. The classroom fills and Sam sits beside me again. Just before the bell rings Sarah and Mark enter together. She's dressed in a white button-up shirt and black pants. She smiles at me before sitting down. I smile back. Mark doesn't look my way at all. I can still smell the manure on Sam's shoes.

He pulls a pamphlet from his bag with the title They Walk Among Us on the cover. It looks as though it was printed in somebody's basement. Sam flips to an article in the center and starts reading intently.

I look at Sarah a couple feet to my right, I can see the nape of her slender neck. She crosses her legs and sits straight in her chair. I wish I were sitting beside her, that I could reach over and take her hand in mine. I wish it were sixth period already. I wonder if I'll be her partner in home ec again.

Mrs. Burton begins lecturing. She's still on the topic of Saturn. Sam takes out a sheet of paper and begins scribbling wildly, pausing at times to consult an article in the magazine he has opened beside him. I look over his shoulder and read the title: "Entire Montana Town Abducted by Aliens."

Before last night I would have never pondered such a theory. But Henri believes the Mogadorians are plotting to take over Earth, and I must admit, even though the theory in Sam's publication is ludicrous, at its most basic level there might be something there. I know for a fact that the Loric has visited Earth many times over the life of this planet. We watched Earth develop, watched it through the times of growth and abundance when everything moved, and through the times of ice and snow when nothing did. We helped the humans, taught them to make fire, gave them the tools to develop speech and language, which is why our language is so similar to the languages of Earth. And even though we never abducted humans, that doesn't mean it's never been done. I look at Sam. I've never met somebody with a fascination in aliens to the point of reading and taking notes on conspiracy theories.

Just then the door opens and Mr. Harris sticks his smiling face in.

"Sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Burton. I'm going to have to snag Mark from you. The Gazette reporters are here to interview him for the paper," he says loudly enough so everyone in the class can hear.

Mark stands, grabs his bag, and casually strolls out of the room. From the doorway I see Mr. Harris pat him on the back. Then I look back at Sarah, wishing I could sit in the empty seat beside her.

XXXXXXXX

Fourth period is physical education. Sam is in my class. After changing we sit beside each other on the gymnasium floor. He is wearing tennis shoes, shorts, a T-shirt two or three sizes too large. He looks like a stork, all knees and elbows, somewhat lanky even though he's short. The gym teacher, Mr. Wallace, stands firmly in front of us, his feet shoulder-width apart, his hands clenched into fists on his hips.

"All right, guys, listen up. This is probably the last chance we'll get to work outdoors, so make it count. One-mile run, as hard as you can. Your times will be noted and saved for when we run the mile again in the spring. So run hard!"

The outside track is made of synthetic rubber. It circles around the football field, and beyond it are some woods that I imagine might lead to our house, but I'm not sure. The wind is cool and goosebumps traverse the length of Sam's arms. He tries to rub them away.

"Have you run this before?" I ask.

Sam nods. "We ran it the second week of class."

"What was your time?"

"Nine minutes and fifty-four seconds."

I look at him. "I thought skinny kids are supposed to be fast."

"Shut up," he says.

I run side by side with Sam towards the back of the crowd. Halfway around I begin to pull away from Sam. I wonder how fast I could run a mile if I really tried. Maybe one minute, maybe less?

The exercise feels great, and without paying much attention, I pass the lead runner. Then I slow and feign exhaustion. When I do I see a brown and black blur come dashing out of the bushes by the entrance of the grandstand and head straight towards me. My mind is playing tricks on me, I think. I look away and keep running. I pass the teacher. He is holding a stopwatch. He yells words of encouragement but he is looking behind me, away from the track. I follow his eyes. They are fixated on the brown and white blur. It is still coming straight for me and all at once the images from the day before come rushing back. The Mogadorian beasts. There were small ones too, with teeth that glinted in the light like razor blades, fast creatures intent on killing. It looks a little too big though to be them I start sprinting anyways.

I run halfway around the track in as close to a dead sprint as I'm willing without appearing superhuman before I turn back around. There is nothing behind me. I have outrun it. Twenty seconds have passed. Then I turn back around and the thing is right in front of me. It must have cut across the field. I stop dead in my tracks and my perspective corrects itself.

It's Bernie Kosar! He's sitting in the middle of the track with his tongue dangling, tail wagging.

"Bernie Kosar!" I yell. "You scared the hell out of me!"

I resume running at a slow pace and Bernie Kosar runs alongside me. I hope nobody noticed how fast I ran. Then I stop and bend over as though I have cramps and can't catch my breath. I walk for a bit. Then I jog a little. Just as I finish the second lap two people have passed me.

"Benson! What happened? You were dusting everyone!" Mr. Wallace yells when I run by him.

I breathe heavily, for show. "I—have—asthma," I say.

He shakes his head in disapproval. "And here I thought I had this year's Ohio state track champion in my class."

I shrug and keep going, stopping every so often to walk. Bernie Kosar stays with me, sometimes walking, sometimes trotting. When I'm passing the halfway point on the last lap Sam catches up to me and we run together. His face is bright red.

"So what were you reading in astronomy today?" I ask. "An entire Montana town abducted by aliens?"

He grins at me. "Yeah, that's the theory," he says somewhat shyly, as though embarrassed.

"Why would an entire town be abducted?" Sam shrugs, doesn't answer. "No, really?" I ask.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Of course."

"Well, the theory is that the government has been allowing alien abductions in exchange for technology."

"Really? What kind of technology?" I ask.

"Like chips for supercomputers and formulas for more bombs and green technologies. Stuff like that."

"Green technology for live specimens? Weird. Why do aliens want to abduct humans?"

"So they can study us."

"But why? I mean, what reason could they possibly have?"

"So that when Armageddon comes they'll know our weaknesses and be able to easily defeat us by exposing them."

I'm kind of taken aback by his answer, but only because of the scenes still playing in my head from the night before, remembering the weapons I saw the Mogadorians use, and the massive beasts.

"Wouldn't it be easy for them if they already have bombs and technologies far superior to our own?"

"Well, some people seem to think that they're hoping we'll kill ourselves first."

I look at Sam. He is smiling at me, trying to decide whether I'm taking the conversation seriously.

"Why would they want us to kill ourselves first? What is their incentive?"

"Because they're jealous."

"Jealous of us? Why, because of our rugged good looks?"

Sam laughs. "Something like that."

I nod. We run in silence for a minute and I can tell Sam is having a tough time, breathing heavily.

"How did you get interested in all this?"

He shrugs. "It's just a hobby," he says, though I get the distinct feeling that he's keeping something from me.

We finish the mile myself at 7 min and Sam at eight minutes fifty-nine seconds, better than the last time Sam ran it. Bernie Kosar follows the class back to the school. The others pet him, and when we walk in he tries to come in with us. I don't know how he knew where I was. Could he have memorized the way to the school this morning on the ride in? The thought seems ridiculous. He stays at the door. I walk to the locker room with Sam and the second he catches his breath he rattles off a ton of other conspiracy theories, one right after another, most of which are laughable. I like him and find him amusing, but sometimes I wish he would stop talking.

XXXXXXXX

When home ec begins Sarah isn't in class. Mrs. Benshoff gives instruction for the first ten minutes and then we head to the kitchen. I enter the station alone, resigned to the fact that I'll be cooking alone today, and as soon as that thought occurs to me, Sarah walks in.

"Did I miss anything good?" she asks.

"About ten minutes of quality time with me," I say with a smile.

She laughs. "I heard about your locker this morning. I'm sorry."

"You put the manure there?" I ask.

She laughs again. "No, of course not. But I know they're picking on you because of me."

"They're just lucky I didn't use my superpowers and throw them into the next county."

She playfully grabs my biceps but pauses in shock before squeezing them again. "Oh wow, I was expecting some muscles but you're actually decently buff under all these baggy clothes. Boy, they are lucky."

I can see the surprise on her face when she does grab my arm. I have years of honing my skills and trying to be the strongest I can possibly be.

Our project for the day is to make blueberry cupcakes. As we start mixing the batter, Sarah begins telling me about her history with Mark. They dated for two years, but the longer they were together, the more she drifted from her parents and her friends. She was Mark's girlfriend, nothing else. She knew she had started to change, to adopt some of his attitudes towards people: being mean and judgmental, thinking she was better than them. She also started drinking and her grades slipped. At the end of the last school year, her parents sent her to live with her aunt in Colorado for the summer. When she got there, she started taking long hikes in the mountains, taking pictures of the scenery with her aunt's camera. She fell in love with photography and had the best summer ever, realizing there was far more to life than being a cheerleader and dating the quarterback of the football team. When she got home she broke up with Mark and quit cheerleading, and made a vow that she was going to be good, and kind, to everyone. Mark hasn't gotten over it. She says he still considers her his girlfriend and believes she's going to come back to him. She says the only thing she misses about him are his dogs, which she hung out with whenever she was at his house. I then tell her about Bernie Kosar, and how he showed up at our doorstep unexpectedly.

We work as we talk. As we're frosting the cupcakes, she asks if I left many friends. I tell her that I lost my old phone with all of my contacts, she asks if I left a girlfriend behind when we moved. I say no, and she smiles, which just about ruins me. Before class ends, she tells me about the upcoming Halloween festival in town and says she hopes to see me there, that maybe we can hang out. I say yeah, that would be great and pretend to be cool, even though I'm flying inside.

XXXXXXXX

Getting home that night after school Henri and I start to really buckle down on training up my lumen, he isn't sure what all it can do but he is sure that it is more than just heat immunity. We manage to get my arms fully accustomed before moving into my legs. After enough of that, I catch Henri up on what has been happening at school with Sarah, Mark, and especially with what I have learned about Sam.

"So you say Sam is a fanatic about aliens?" Henri asks when I tell him about Sam's theories.

"Yeah, I'm not sure if it's just a hobby or if it's because of his father disappearing but I'm sure that I'll be able to get more information from him soon."

We move on to my Telekinesis, we have managed to get my strength with it up to par with my physical strength which is resting at about 2 tons bench weight or roughly Henri's pickup. We are struggling a bit with my dexterity, I can manage catching things and moving them around well enough but I am struggling with wielding weapons and moving multiple small items at a time. Henri assures me that with practice I will continue to grow stronger and get better.

Images come to me, at random times, usually when I least expect them. Sometimes they are small and fleeting—my grandmother holding a glass of water and opening her mouth to say something—but I never know the words because the image vanishes as quickly as it came. Sometimes they are longer, more lifelike: my grandfather pushing me on a swing. I can feel the strength in his arms as he pushes me up, the butterflies in the pit of my stomach as I race down. My laughter carries on the wind. Then the image is gone. Sometimes I explicitly remember the images from my past, remember being a part of them. But sometimes they are as new to me as though they never happened before.

In the living room, with Henri running the Loric crystal up each of my arms and legs, I stand in a large metal tub, I see the following: I am young—three, maybe four—running through our front yard of newly clipped grass. Beside me is an animal with a body like a dog, but with a coat like a tiger. His head is round, his body barrel-chested atop short legs. Unlike any animal, I have ever seen. He crouches, poised to leap at me. I can't stop laughing. Then he jumps and I try to catch him but I'm too small and both of us fall to the grass. We wrestle. He is stronger than I am. Then he jumps in the air, and instead of falling back to the ground as I expect, he turns himself into a bird and flies up and around me, hovering just beyond my reach. He circles then comes down, shoots between my legs, lands twenty feet away. He changes into an animal that looks like a monkey without a tail. He crouches low to lunge at me.

Just then a man comes up the walk. He is young, dressed in a silver and blue rubber suit that is tight on his body, the kind of suit I've seen divers wear. He speaks to me in a language that I don't understand. He says the name "Hadley" and nods to the animal. Hadley runs over to him, his shape-changing from a monkey to something larger, something bearlike with a lion's mane. Their heads are level, and the man scratches Hadley beneath the chin. Then my grandfather comes out of the house. He looks young, but I know that he must be at least fifty.

He shakes hands with the man. They speak but I don't understand what they are saying. Then the man looks at me, smiles lifts his hand out, and all of a sudden I'm off the ground and flying through the air. Hadley follows, as a bird again. I'm in full control of my body, but the man controls where I go, moving his hand to the left or to the right. Hadley and I play in midair, him tickling me with his beak, me trying to get a grip on him. And then my eyes snap open and the image is gone.

"Your grandfather could make himself invisible at will," I hear Henri say, and I close my eyes again.

The crystal continues up my waist, spreading the fire repellent to the rest of my body. "One of the rarest Legacies there is, developing only in one percent of our people, and he was one of them. He could make himself and whatever he was touching completely disappear.

"There was one time he wanted to play a joke on me before I knew what his Legacies were. You were three years old and I had just started working with your family. I came to your house for the first time the day before, and as I came up the hill for my second day the house wasn't there. There was a driveway, and a car, and the tree, but no house. I thought I was losing my mind. I continued past it. Then when I knew I had gone too far I turned back and there, some distance away, was the house that I swore wasn't there before. So I started walking back, but when I came close enough the house again vanished. I just stood there looking at the spot where I knew it must be, but seeing only the trees beyond it. So I walked on. Only on my third time by did your grandfather make the house reappear for good. He couldn't stop laughing. We laughed about that day for the next year and a half, all the way till the very end."

When I open my eyes I am back on the battlefield. More explosions, fire, death.

"Your grandfather was a good man," Henri says. "He loved to make people laugh, loved to tell jokes. I don't think there was ever a time that I left your house without having a stomachache from laughing so hard."

The sky has turned red. A tree rips through the air, thrown by the man in silver and blue, the one I saw at the house. It takes out two of the Mogadorians and I want to cheer in victory. But what use is there in celebrating? No matter how many Mogadorians I see killed, the outcome of that day will not change. The Loric will still be defeated, every last one of them killed. I will still be sent to Earth.

"I never once saw the man get angry. When everyone else lost their temper, when stress encompassed them, your grandfather stayed calm. It was usually then that he would bring out his best jokes, and just like that everyone would be laughing again."

The small beasts target the children. They are defenseless, holding sparklers in their hands from the celebration. That is how we are losing—only a few of the Loric are fighting the beasts, and the rest are trying to save the children.

"Your grandmother was different. She was quiet and reserved, very intelligent. Your elders complemented each other that way, your grandfather the carefree one, your grandmother working behind the scenes so that everything went off as planned."

High in the sky, I can still see the trail of blue smoke from the airship carrying us to Earth, carrying us Nine and our Cêpan's. Its presence unnerves the Mogadorians.

"And then there was Julianne, my wife."

Far off in the distance, there is an explosion, this one like the kind that comes from the liftoff of Earth's rockets. Another ship rises in the air, a trail of fire behind it. Slowly at first, then building speed. I'm confused. Our ships didn't use fire for liftoff; they didn't use oil or gasoline. They emitted a small blue trail of smoke that came from the crystals used to power them, never fire like this one. The second ship is slow and clumsy compared to the first, but it makes it, rising through the air, gaining speed. Henri never mentioned a second ship. Who is on it? Where is it going? The Mogadorians shout and point at it. Again, it causes them anxiety, and for a brief moment the Loric surge.

"She had the greenest eyes I'd ever seen, bright green like emeralds, plus a heart as big as the planet itself. Always helping others, constantly bringing in animals and keeping them as pets. I'll never know what it was she saw in me."

The large beast has returned, the one with the red eyes and enormous horns. Drool mixed with blood falls from razor-sharp teeth so large they can't be contained within its mouth. The man in silver and blue is standing directly in front of it. He tries to lift the beast with his powers, and he gets it a few feet off the ground but then struggles and lifts no farther. The beast roars shakes and falls back to the ground. It forces ahead against the man's powers, but it can't break them. The man lifts it again. Sweat and blood glisten in the moonlight on his face. Then he doubles his hands over and the beast crashes to its side. The ground shakes. Thunder and lightning fill the sky but there's no rain to go with them.

"She was a late sleeper, and I always woke before she did. I would sit in the den and read the paper, make breakfast, go for a walk. Some mornings I would come back and she would still be sleeping. I was impatient, couldn't wait to start the day together. She made me feel good just to be around her. I would go in and try to rouse her. She would pull the covers over her head and growl at me. Almost every morning, always the same thing."

The beast flails but the man is still in control. Other Garde have joined in, every one of them using a power on the mammoth beast, fire and lightning raining down upon it, streaks of lasers coming from all directions. Some Garde are doing damage unseen, standing away from it, and holding their hands out in concentration. And then high up a collective storm brews, one major cloud growing and glowing in an otherwise cloudless sky, some sort of energy collecting within it. All Garde are in on it, all of them helping to create this cataclysmic haze. And then a final, massive bolt of lightning drops down and hits the beast where it lies. And there it dies.

"What could I do? What could anyone do? In total there were nineteen of us on that ship. You nine children and us nine Cêpan, chosen by no means other than where we happened to be that night, and the pilot who brought us here. We Cêpan couldn't fight, and what difference would it have made if we could? The Cêpan are bureaucrats, meant to keep the planet running, meant to teach, meant to train new Garde how to understand and manipulate their powers. We were never meant to be fighters. We would have been ineffective. We would have died like the rest. All we could do was leave. Leave with you to live and to one day restore to glory the most beautiful planet in all of the universe."

I close my eyes and when I reopen them the fight has ended. Smoke rises from the ground among the dead and the dying. Trees broken, the forests burned, nothing standing save the few Mogadorians that have lived to tell the tale. The sun rising to the south and a pale glow growing on the barren land bathed in red. Mounds of bodies, not all of them intact, not all of them whole. On top of one mound is the man in silver and blue, dead like the rest. There are no discernible marks on his body, but he is dead all the same.

My eyes snap open. I can't breathe, and my mouth is dry, parched.

"Here," Henri says. He helps me off the coffee table, guides me into the kitchen, and pulls out a chair for me. Tears are coming to my eyes though I try to blink them back. Henri brings me a glass of water and I drink every bit of it without stopping. I give him the glass and he refills it. I drop my head, still struggling to breathe. I drink the second glass, then look at Henri.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about a second ship?" I ask.

"What are you talking about?"

"There was a second ship," I say. "On Lorien, the day we left. A second ship that took off after ours."

"Impossible," he says.

"Why is it impossible?"

"Because the other ships were destroyed. I saw it with my own eyes. When the Mogadorians landed they took out our ports first. We traveled in the only ship that survived their offensive. It was a miracle that we made it off."

"I saw a second ship. I'm telling you. It wasn't like the others, though. It ran on fuel, a ball of fire following behind it."

Henri watches me closely. He is thinking hard, his brows crinkled.

"Are you sure, John?"

"Yes."

He leans back in his chair, looks out the window. Bernie Kosar is on the ground, staring up at us both.

"It made it off Lorien," I say. "I watched it the whole way until it disappeared."

"That makes no sense," Henri says. "I don't see how it could be possible. There was nothing left."

We sit in the living room, a fire in the hearth, Bernie Kosar in my lap. An occasional pop from the logs breaks the silence.

"On!" I say and snap my fingers. My right hand illuminates, brighter than I've seen it before. In the short amount of time since Henri started coaching me I've learned to control the glow. I can concentrate it, making it wide, like a bonfire at night, or narrow and focused, like a flashlight. My ability to manipulate it is coming more quickly than I expected. I snap my fingers and say "on" just to show off, but I don't need to do either to control the light or to have it come on. It just happens from within, as effortlessly as twitching a finger or blinking an eye.

"When do you think the other Legacies will develop?" I ask.

Henri looks up from the paper. "Soon," he says. "The next one should start within the month, whatever it is. You just have to keep a close watch. Not all the powers will be obvious like your hands."

"How long will it take for them all to come?"

He shrugs. "Sometimes all is complete within two months, sometimes it takes up to a year. It varies from Garde to Garde. But however long it takes, your major Legacy will be the last to develop."

I close my eyes and lean back against the couch. I think about my major Legacy, the one that will allow me to fight. I'm not sure what I want it to be. Lasers? Mind control? The ability to manipulate the weather as I had seen the man in silver and blue do? Or do I want something darker, more sinister, like the ability to kill without touching? I run my hand down Bernie Kosar's back. I look over at Henri. He's wearing a nightcap and a pair of spectacles on the tip of his nose like a storybook rat.

"Why were we at the airfield that day?" I ask.

"We didn't leave Lorien because of where we happened to be that day. Our being at the airfield, it wasn't sheer happenstance. We were there because when the attack began, the Garde rallied together to get you there. Many sacrificed their lives in the process. There were supposed to be ten of you, though as you know only nine made it off."

"Well, how was it decided that we would leave?" I ask. "I mean, surely a plan like that would've needed more time than a few minutes' notice, right?"

"We didn't take off until three hours after the invasion started. Do you not remember any of it?"

"Very little."

"We met your grandfather at the statue of Pittacus. He gave you to me and told me to get you to the airfield, that that was our only chance. There was an underground compound beneath the airfield. He said there had always been a contingency plan in case something of the sort occurred, but it was never taken seriously because the threat of an attack seemed ludicrous. Just like it would be here, on Earth. If you were to tell any human now that there is a threat of an attack by aliens, well, they would laugh at you. It was no different on Lorien. I asked him how he knew about the plan and he didn't answer, just smiled, and said good-bye. It makes sense that no one would really know about the plan, or only a few would," He pauses to take a breath and orient himself before pressing on. "One of the planet's Elders met us at the airfield. He's the one who cast the Loric charm that branded your ankles and tied you all together, and gave you each an amulet, he told us that when the ten of you were born, Lorien recognized your strong hearts, your wills, your compassion, and in turn she bestowed the ten of you with the roles you're all meant to assume: the roles of the original ten Elders. What this means is that, in time, those of you left will grow to be far stronger than anything Lorien has ever seen before, far stronger even than the original ten Elders from whom you've received your Inheritances. The Mogadorians know this, which is why they're hunting you so feverishly now. They've grown desperate and have flooded this planet with spies. I never told you the truth before because I feared it might drive you to arrogance and that you might be led astray, and there's far too much danger out there looking for you to risk that."

I take some time to allow all of that to sink in, the knowledge of why us nine were chosen, and why all of this effort was put into keeping us alive. In a way, it's a bit freeing to know that I wasn't just a random kid thrust into this situation by happenstance but that I was born to do this. I was born to win.

"But when the third scar arrived I knew that we needed to start looking for the others, and beyond trying to find them and get to them before the Mogs we had little hope but to try and find Malcolm Goode. The dark stars must have fallen because the man was already gone. This man who met us that first day, who gave us a cultural guide to follow and who set us up in our first homes is our only present hope."

A.N. Thank you to those that have been reading. I am trying to put out a chapter or two a day if I don't think I can get them out the next day. To those that care, here soon there should start to be some divergence from the main story and I plan on making some bigger changes past just conversations. Thanks again and Happy Halloween!

A.N. Sorry I am just going through and fixing some errors on my part! If you see anything that should be fixed please let me know, I got so much going on in my head that sometimes I forget to re-read and make sure that I don't have any major issues.


	6. Chapter 6

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Six-

It's been almost two weeks since arriving in Paradise, the Halloween parade that they put on in town is supposed to be happening tonight. Sarah had invited me to show up and that she hoped to see me, it's just about the only reason me and Henri are not at home training right now. Training is slow going right now building up my immunity to fire, practicing telekinesis, and seeing the visions of the past. My physical training has been slowed down of course by training my new abilities, I take to practicing my animal telepathy with BK he doesn't ever really say much just that he is happy to be with me.

It's a cold day, the sun peeking intermittently through thick white clouds gliding by overhead. The town is bustling. All the kids are in costume. We have bought a leash for Bernie Kosar, who is wearing a Superman cape draped over his back, a large "S" on his chest. He tells me that he is unimpressed with it. He's not the only dog dressed as a superhero.

Henri and I stand on the sidewalk in front of the Hungry Bear, the diner just off the circle in the center of town, to watch the parade. In its front window hangs a clipping of the Gazette article on Mark James. He's pictured standing on the fifty-yard line of the football field, wearing his letterman jacket, his arms crossed, his right foot resting atop a football, a wry, confident grin on his face. Even I have to admit he looks impressive. Henri sees me staring at the paper.

"It's your friend, right?" he asks with a smile.

Henri knows all about what's been happening at school from the near fight to the cow manure to the crush I have on his ex-girlfriend.

"My best friend," I correct him.

Just then the band starts. It's at the head of the parade, followed by various Halloween-themed floats, one of which is carrying Mark and a few of the football players. Some I recognize from class, some I don't. They throw handfuls of candy to the kids. Then Mark catches sight of me and he nudges the guy beside him—Kevin, the kid I kneed in the stomach in the cafeteria. Mark points at me and says something. They both laugh.

"That's him?" Henri asks.

"That's him."

"Looks like a dick."

"I told you."

Then come the cheerleaders, walking, all in uniform, hair pulled back, smiling, and waving to the crowd. Sarah is walking alongside them, taking pictures. She gets them in action, while they're jumping, doing their cheers. Despite the fact that she's wearing jeans and no makeup, she's far more beautiful than any of them. We've been talking more and more at school, and I can't stop thinking about her. Henri sees me staring at her. Then he turns back to the parade.

"That's her, huh?"

"That's her."

She sees me and waves, then points to the camera, meaning she'd come over but wants to take pictures. I smile and nod.

"Well," Henri says. "I can certainly see the appeal."

We watch the parade. The mayor of Paradise passes by, sitting on the back of a red convertible. He throws more candy to the children. There will be a lot of hyper kids today, I think. I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around.

"Sam Goode. What's the word?"

He shrugs. "Nothin'. What's up with you?"

"Watching the parade. This is my dad, Henri."

They shake hands. Henri says, "John has told me a lot about you."

"Really?" Sam asks with a crooked grin.

"Really," Henri responds. Then he pauses a minute and a smile takes shape.

"You know, I've been reading. Maybe you've heard it already, but did you know that aliens are the reason we have thunderstorms? They create them in order to enter our planet unnoticed. The storm creates a diversion, and the lightning you see is really coming from the spaceships entering Earth's atmosphere."

Sam smiles and scratches his head. "Get out of here," he says.

Henri shrugs. "That's what I've heard."

"All right," Sam says, more than willing to oblige Henri. "Well, did you know that the dinosaurs really didn't go extinct? Aliens were so fascinated by them that they decided to gather them all up and take them to their own planet."

Henri shakes his head. "I didn't know that," he says.

They go on like this for a bit, I can tell that Henri is fishing for information. To see how much Sam really knows about aliens. It goes until both Henri and I stop frozen in fear by what he says just a little bit later.

"Did you know that the Mogadorians are on a quest for universal domination and that they have already wiped out one planet and are planning to wipe Earth out next? They're here seeking human weakness so that they can exploit us when the war begins."

Henri stares at Sam, dumbfounded. He's holding his breath. His hand tightens around his coffee cup.

"You guys look like you've seen a ghost. Does this mean I win?" Sam says as he sees both of us just staring at him, it came so sudden that I didn't have time to reign in my facial expressions.

"Where did you hear that?" I ask.

Henri looks at me so fiercely that I wish I had remained silent.

"From They Walk Among Us."

"Do you have a copy of that I might be able to borrow?" Henri says with a cough.

"Oh uh sure I think I know where I left it last, I can give it to John on Monday at school," Sam says though looking confused why Henri might want it.

Just then a petite woman standing behind Sam interrupts.

"Sam," she says. He turns and looks at her. "Where have you been?"

Sam shrugs. "I was standing right here."

She sighs, then says to Henri, "Hi, I'm Sam's mother."

"Henri," he says and shakes her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

She opens her eyes in surprise. Something in Henri's accent has excited her.

"Ah bon! Vous parlez français? C'est super! J'ai personne avec qui je peux parler français depuis long-temps."

Henri smiles. "I'm sorry. I don't actually speak French. I know my accent sounds like it, though."

"No?" She is disappointed. "Well hell, here I thought some dignity had finally come to town."

Sam looks at me and rolls his eyes.

"All right, Sam, let's get going," she says.

He shrugs. "You guys gonna go to the park and the hayride?"

I look at Henri, then at Sam. "Yeah, sure," I say. "Are you?"

He shrugs.

"Well, try to come meet us if you can," I say.

He smiles and nods. "Okay, cool."

"Time to go, Sam. And you might not be able to go on the hayride. I need your help at home," his mother says.

He starts to say something but she walks away. Sam follows her.

"Very nice woman," Henri says sarcastically.

"How did you make all that up?" I ask.

The crowd begins migrating up Main Street, away from the circle. Henri and I follow it up to the park, where cider and food are being served. "You lie long enough and you start to get used to it."

I nod. "So what do you think?"

He takes a deep breath and exhales. The temperature is cold enough so that I can see his breath. "I have no idea. I don't know what to think at this point. He caught me off guard."

"He caught us both off guard, I'm surprised that you just up and asked him for a copy like that. Couldn't you have just looked them up online or something?"

"I am online every day scouring for any information even remotely close to what he just said and I've never heard of these people. Make sure you get that copy," he says.

"I will," I say. "But still, it makes no sense. How could somebody know that?"

"It's being supplied from somewhere."

"Do you think it's one of us?"

"No."

"Do you think it's them?"

"It could be. Hell, John, I don't know. We'll have to look into it, though. It's not a coincidence, that's for sure."

We walk in silence, still a little stunned, turning possible explanations over in our minds. Bernie Kosar trots along between us, tongue dangling, his cape falling to one side, and dragging on the sidewalk. He's a big hit with the kids and many of them stop us to pet him. The park is situated on the southern edge of town. At the far border are two adjacent lakes separated by a narrow strip of land leading into the forest beyond them. The park itself is made up of three baseball fields, a playground, and a large pavilion where volunteers serve cider and slices of pumpkin pie. Three hay wagons are off to the side of the gravel drive, with a large sign reading:

BE SCARED OUT OF YOUR WITS! HALLOWEEN HAUNTED HAYRIDES START SUNDOWN $5 PER PERSON

The drive segues from gravel to dirt before it reaches the woods, the entrance to which is decorated with cutouts of ghosts and goblin caricatures. It appears that the haunted hayride travels through the woods. I look around for Sarah but don't see her anywhere. I wonder if she'll be going on it. Henri and I enter the pavilion. The cheerleaders are off to the side, some of them doing Halloween-themed face paintings for the kids, the others selling raffle tickets for the drawing to be held at six p.m.

"Hi, John," I hear behind me. I turn around and there's Sarah, holding her camera. "How did you like the parade?"

I smile at her and slide my hands into my pockets. There's a small white ghost painted on her cheek.

"Hey, you," I say. "I liked it. I think I'm getting used to this small-town Ohio charm."

"Charm? You mean boringness, right?"

I shrug. "I don't know, it isn't bad."

"So this is the Bernie Kosar that I've heard so much about," she says, bending down to pet Bernie Kosar.

He wags his tail wildly, jumps up, and tries to lick her face. Sarah laughs. I look over my shoulder. Henri is twenty feet away, talking to Sarah's mom at one of the picnic tables. I'm curious to know what they're talking about.

"I think he likes you."

"Look at this cape. It's, like, cute overload."

"You know if you keep that up I'm going to be jealous of my own dog," I say.

She smiles and stands. "So are you going to buy a raffle ticket from me or what? It's to rebuild a not-for-profit animal shelter destroyed in a fire last month in Colorado."

"Really? How does a girl from Paradise, Ohio, learn of an animal shelter in Colorado?"

"It's my aunt's. I've convinced all the girls on the cheerleading squad to participate. We're going to take a trip and assist in the construction. We'll be helping the animals and getting out of school and Ohio for a week. It's a win-win situation."

I picture Sarah dressed in a hard hat, wielding a hammer. The thought brings a grin to my face. "So you're saying I'm going to have to cover the kitchen alone for a whole week?" I fake an exasperated sigh and shake my head. "I don't know if I can support such a trip now, even if it is for the animals."

She laughs and punches me in the arm. I take out my wallet and give her five dollars for six tickets. "These six are good luck," she says.

"They are?"

"Of course. You bought them from me, silly."

Just then, over Sarah's shoulder, I see Mark and the rest of the guys from the float walk into the pavilion.

"Are you going on the haunted hayride tonight?" Sarah asks.

"Yeah, I was thinking about it."

"You should, it's fun. Everybody does it. And it actually gets pretty scary."

Mark sees Sarah and me talking and scrunches his face into a scowl. He comes walking our way. Same outfit as always—letterman jacket, blue jeans, hair full of gel.

"So you're going?" I ask Sarah.

Before she can respond Mark interrupts. "How'd you like the parade, Johnny?" he asks.

Sarah quickly turns around and glares at him.

"I liked it a lot," I reply.

"You going on the haunted hayride tonight, or are you going to be too scared?"

I smile at him. "As a matter of fact, I am going."

"You going to have a freak-out like in school and run out of the woods crying like a baby?"

"Don't be an ass, Mark," Sarah says.

He looks at me, seething. With the crowd around there is nothing he can do without causing a scene—and I don't think he would do anything anyway.

"All in due time," Mark says.

"You think?"

"Yours is coming," he says.

"It may but it's certainly not going to be coming from you or any of your friends," I say.

"Stop it!" Sarah yells. She works her way in between us, pushing us away from each other. People are watching. She glances around as though embarrassed by the attention, then scowls at Mark first, then at me. "Fine, then. You guys fight if that's what you want to do. Good luck with it," Sarah says, and turns and walks away. I watch her go. Mark doesn't.

"Sarah," I call, but she keeps walking and disappears past the pavilion.

"Soon," Mark says. I look back at him.

"Mark you are not a threat to me and you never will be, you can try and bully me all you like. Not only will you get nowhere but I will put you in your place if you keep this up."

He retreats to his group of friends. Henri walks up to me.

"I don't suppose he was inquiring about yesterday's math homework?"

"Not quite," I say.

"I wouldn't worry about him," Henri says. "He looks to be all talk."

"I'm not," I say, and then glance at the spot where Sarah disappeared. "Should I go after her?" I ask, and look at him, pleading to the part of him that was once married and in love, that part that still misses his wife every day, and not the part of him that wants to keep me safe and hidden.

He nods his head. "Yeah," he says with a sigh. "As much as I hate to admit it, you should probably go after her."

I see Sarah, sitting alone, gently pushing herself on the swing. I weave my way through the screams and shrieks of kids running around in their costumes. When Sarah sees me she smiles those big blue eyes of hers like a beacon.

"Need a push?" I ask. She nods to the swing that has just opened beside her and I sit. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. He just wears me down. He always has to act so tough and he's downright mean when he's around friends." She twists herself on the swing until the rope becomes taut, then she lifts her feet and it spins her around, slowly at first, then gaining speed. She laughs the whole time, her blond hair a trail behind her. I do the same thing. When the swing finally stops the world keeps spinning. "Where is Bernie Kosar?"

"I left him with Henri," I say.

"Your dad?"

"Yeah." I am constantly doing that, calling Henri by his name when I should be saying "Dad."

The temperature is quickly dropping, and my hands are white-knuckled on the rope chain, becoming cold. We watch the kids run amok around us. Sarah looks at me and her eyes seem bluer than ever in the coming dusk. Our gaze stays locked, each of us just staring at the other, no words being said but much passing between us. The children seem to fade into the background. Then she smiles shyly and looks away.

"So what are you going to do?" I ask.

"About what?"

"Mark."

She shrugs. "What can I do? I've already broken up with him. I keep telling him I have no interest in getting back together."

I nod. I'm not sure how to respond to that. "But anyway, I should probably try to sell the rest of these tickets. Only an hour before the raffle."

"Do you want any help?"

"No, that's okay. You should go have fun. Bernie Kosar is probably missing you right now. But you should definitely stick around for the hayride. Maybe we can go on it together?"

"I'd like that," I say. A happiness blooms inside of me, but I try to keep it hidden.

"I'll see you in a little while, then."

"Good luck with the tickets."

She reaches over and grabs my hand and holds it for a good three seconds. Then she lets go, jumps off the swing, and hurries away. I sit there, gently swinging, enjoying the brisk wind that I haven't felt in a very long time because we spent the last winter in Florida and the one before that in south Texas. When I head back to the pavilion Henri is sitting at a picnic table eating a slice of pie with Bernie Kosar lying at his feet.

"How'd it go?"

"Good," I say with a smile.

From somewhere an orange and blue firework shoots up and explodes in the sky. It makes me think of Lorien and of the fireworks I saw on the day of the invasion.

"Have you thought any more about the second ship I saw?"

Henri looks around to make sure there's nobody within earshot. We have the picnic table to ourselves, positioned in the far corner away from the crowd.

"A little. I still have no idea what it means, though."

"Do you think it could have traveled here?"

"No. It wouldn't be possible. If it ran on fuel, like you say, it wouldn't have been able to travel far without refueling."

I sit for a moment. "I wish it could have traveled here, with us."

"It's a nice thought," says Henri.

An hour or so passes and I see all the football players, Mark in front, walks across the grass. They are dressed up as mummies, zombies, ghosts, twenty-five of them in total. They sit in the bleachers of the nearest baseball field and the cheerleaders who were drawing on the children begin applying makeup to complete the costumes of Mark and his friends. It's only then that I realize the football players will be the ones doing the scaring on the haunted hayride, the ones waiting for us in the woods.

"See that?" I ask Henri. Henri looks at them all and nods, then picks up his coffee and takes a long drink.

"Think you should still go on the ride?" he asks.

"No," I say. "But I'm going to anyway."

"I figured you would."

Mark is dressed as a zombie of sorts, wearing dark tattered clothes, with black and gray makeup on his face, splotches of red in random places to simulate blood. When his costume is complete Sarah walks up to him and says something. His voice becomes raised but I can't hear what he's saying. His movements are animated and he talks so fast that I can tell he's stumbling over his words. Sarah crosses her arms and shakes her head at him. His body tenses. I move to stand, but Henri grabs my arm.

"Don't," he says. "He's only pushing her further away."

I look at them and wish with everything that I could hear what is being said, but there are too many screaming kids around to focus in. When the yelling stops they both stand looking at each other, a hurtful scowl on Mark's face, an incredulous grin on Sarah's. Then she shakes her head and walks away.

I look at Henri. "What should I do now?"

"Not a thing," he says. "Not a thing."

Mark walks back to his friends, head hung, scowling. A few of them look in my direction. Smirks appear. Then they start walking towards the forest. A slow methodical march, twenty-five guys in costume receding in the distance. To kill time I walk back to the center of town with Henri and we eat dinner at the Hungry Bear. When we walk back the sun has set and the first trailer piled with hay and pulled by a green tractor takes off for the woods. The crowd has thinned considerably and those left are mostly high schoolers and free-spirited adults who total a hundred or so people. I look for Sarah among them but I don't see her. The next trailer leaves in ten minutes. According to the pamphlet, the whole ride is half an hour-long, the tractor going through the woods slowly, the anticipation building, and then it stops and the riders are to get off and follow a different trail on foot, at which point the scares begin.

Henri and I stand beneath the pavilion and I again scan the long line of people waiting their turn. I still don't see her. Just then my phone vibrates in my pocket. I can't remember the last time my phone rang when it wasn't Henri calling. The caller ID reads SARAH HART. Excitement rushes through me.

"Hello?" I say.

"John?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, it's Sarah. Are you still at the park?" she says. She sounds as though her calling me is normal

"Yes."

"Great! I'm going to be back there in about five minutes. Have the rides started?"

"Yeah, a couple of minutes ago."

"You haven't gone yet, have you?"

"No."

"Oh, good! Wait so we can ride together."

"Yeah, definitely," I say. "The second one is about to leave now."

"Perfect. I'll be there in time for the third."

"See you then."

I hang up, a huge smile on my face.

"Be careful out there," Henri says.

"I will." Then I pause and try to bring lightness to my voice. "You don't have to stick around. I'm sure I can get a ride home."

"I'm willing to stay and live in this town to get what we need but you need to remember that we are still being chased. I would rather wait here and be close by in case something happens also I don't like the looks those guys gave you earlier one bit."

I nod. "I'll be fine," I say.

"I'm sure you will. But just in case I'm going to be right here waiting."

Sarah pulls up five minutes later with a pretty friend who I've seen before but have never been introduced to. She has changed into jeans, a wool sweater, and a black jacket. She has wiped away the painted ghost that was on her right cheek and her hair is down, falling past her shoulders.

"Hey, you," she says.

"Hi."

She wraps her arms around me in a tentative hug. I can smell the perfume wafting up from her neck. Then she pulls away. "Hi, John's dad," she says to Henri. "This is my friend Emily."

"Pleased to meet you both," Henri says. "So you guys are off into the unknown terror?"

"You bet," Sarah says.

"Will this one be okay out there? I don't want him getting too scared on me," Sarah says to Henri, motioning to me with a smile.

Henri grins and I can tell he already likes Sarah. "You better stay close just in case."

She looks over her shoulder. The third trailer is a quarter full. "I'll keep him safe," she says. "We better get going."

"Have a great time," Henri says. Sarah surprises me by taking my hand and the three of us rush off towards the hay wagon a hundred yards away from the pavilion. There is a line of about thirty people long. We get to the back of it and start talking, though I'm feeling a little shy and mostly just listen to the two girls talk. As we're waiting I see Sam hovering off to the side as though contemplating whether or not to approach us.

"Sam!" I yell with more enthusiasm than I intended. He stumbles over. "You coming on the ride with us?"

He shrugs. "Do you mind?"

"Come on," Sarah says, and motions him in. He stands next to Emily, who smiles at him. He immediately starts blushing and I'm ecstatic he's along for the ride. Suddenly a kid holding a walkie-talkie comes over. I recognize him from the football team.

"Hi, Tommy," Sarah says to him.

"Hey," he says.

"There are four spots left on this wagon. You guys want them?"

"Really?"

"Yeah."

We skip the line and jump up onto the trailer, where the four of us sit on a bale of hay together. I find it odd that Tommy doesn't ask us for tickets. I'm curious as to why he let us skip the line altogether. Some of the people waiting look at us with disgust. I can't say that I blame them.

"Enjoy the ride," Tommy says with a grin, the kind I've seen people wear when told something bad has happened to someone they despise.

"That was weird," I say. Sarah shrugs.

"He probably has a crush on Emily."

"Oh God, I hope not," Emily says, and then fake-gags.

I watch Tommy from the bale of hay. The trailer is only half full, which is another thing that strikes me as strange since there are so many people waiting.

The tractor pulls away, bumps along the pathway, and drives through the entrance of the forest, where ghastly sounds come through hidden speakers. The forest is thick and no light penetrates other than what shines from the front of the tractor. Once that is off, I think, there will be nothing but darkness. Sarah takes hold of my hand again. She's cold to the touch, but a sense of warmth floods through me. She leans over to me and whispers, "I'm a little scared."

Figures of ghosts hang just over us from the low branches, and off the drive grimacing zombies lean against various trees. The tractor stops and kills its headlight. Then come intermittent strobes that flash for ten seconds. There is nothing scary about them and only when they stop do I understand their effect: our eyes take a few seconds to adjust and we can't see a thing. Then a scream shoots through the night and Sarah tenses against me as figures sweep around us. I squint to focus and I see that Emily has moved next to Sam and that he is smiling widely. I'm actually a little scared myself. I put my arm carefully around Sarah. A hand grazes our backs and Sarah grips tightly to my leg. Some of the others scream. With a jolt, the tractor turns back on and continues forward, nothing but the outlines of the trees in its light.

We drive for another three or four minutes. The anticipation builds, the foreboding fear of having to walk the distance we just drove. Then the tractor pulls into a circular clearing and stops.

"Everybody off," the driver yells.

When the last person is off, the tractor pulls away. Its light recedes in the distance, then disappears, leaving nothing but the night and not a single sound other than what we make.

"Shit," somebody says, and all of us laugh.

In total there are eleven of us. A path of lights turns on, showing us the way, then turns off. I close my eyes to focus on the feel of Sarah's fingers interlocked with mine.

"I have no idea why I do this every year," Emily says nervously, her arms wrapped around herself.

The other people have started down the trail and we follow. The pathway of lights occasionally flickers on to keep us on our way. The others are far enough ahead that we can't see them. I can barely see the ground at my feet. Three or four screams suddenly ring out in front of us.

"Oh no," Sarah says, and squeezes my hand. "Sounds like trouble ahead."

Just then I hear something moving nearby but I can't see anything, I'm too late anyway as something heavy falls on us. Both girls scream and so does Sam. I trip and hit the ground, scraping my knee, tangled in whatever the hell the thing is. Then I realize it's a net!

"What the hell?" Sam asks.

I tear straight through the twisted rope but the second I'm free I get shoved hard from behind. Someone grabs me and drags me away from the girls and Sam. I break free and manage to trip whoever was pulling me. This isn't part of the ride.

"Who are you and what do you want," I say as I catch my breath, adrenaline pumping through my veins.

A guy laughs in response. I can't see a thing, and he has managed to get back up.

"Let go of me!" one of the girls yells. The girls' voices are moving away from me.

"John?" Sarah calls.

"Where are you, John?" shouts Sam.

I am about to go after them but I am tackled from behind, with all my training I'm able to hold my ground and grab them from their waist slamming them onto the ground.

I stand there a few seconds and don't hear a single sound other than the guys groaning as he lays there. Then I hear a scream from one of the girls, followed by the sounds of struggle. I grit my teeth. I am shaking.

"Get off of me!" Sarah yells. She is being pulled away, I can tell that much.

"Okay," I say to the dark form on the ground. Anger surges through me. "You ready to tell me what's going on now?" I say, loudly this time.

A malicious smile takes shape and my body feels as though it has grown bigger, stronger. I turn my Lumen on but only on two of my fingers to make it seem like I have a flashlight.

Kevin is laying down holding his right shoulder, probably where he landed when I slammed him down. The lights stun him and he looks up at me, trying to figure out where they're coming from. He's wearing night-vision goggles. So that is how they are able to see us, I think. I grab him from the ground after turning off my Lumen. I rip the goggles from his face and throw them as far as I can and know they will land at least a couple miles away, maybe even a dozen, I am angry and am losing control of my strength. So I just toss him back onto the ground as I hear more screaming.

"Let go of me!" I hear from down the trail.

I look up and turn my light back on I can't tell if the voice is Emily's or Sarah's. I take off in their direction. I see Sam up ahead, standing with a zombie's arms around him. Three others are close by. The zombie lets go of him.

"Chill out, we're just kidding around. If you don't resist, you won't get hurt," he says to Sam. "Sit down or something."

The closest person steps towards me and I swing and hit him in the side of the face and he falls motionless to the ground. His goggles sail into the overgrown brambles and disappear. The second person tries to bear-hug me, but I just sidestep him and give him a couple of jabs across his face and side to knock the wind out of him dropping him to the ground in the process.

"What the hell?" says the third guy, confused.

I run up to him grabbing him by his shoulders tossing him into a tree nearby. I look over to the fourth guy, the one who was holding Sam.

He lifts his hands in front of him as though I'm aiming a gun at his chest. "It wasn't my idea," he says.

"What does he have planned?"

"Nothing, man. We just wanted to play a joke on you guys, scare you a little."

"Where are they?"

"They let Emily go. Sarah is up ahead."

"Give me your goggles," I say.

"No way, man. We're borrowing them from the police. I'll get in trouble."

I step towards him. "Fine," he says.

He takes them off and hands them to me. I throw them even harder than I did in the previous pair. I hope they land in the next town. Let them explain that one to the police.

I grab Sam's shirt with my right hand. I can't see a thing without turning on my light. Only then do I realize I should have kept the two pairs of goggles for us to wear. But I didn't, so I take a deep breath and let my left hand glow and begin guiding us up the path. If Sam finds it suspicious, he doesn't let on.

I stop to listen. Nothing. We continue on, weaving through the trees. I turn the light off.

"Sarah!" I yell. I stop to listen and hear nothing but the wind blowing through the branches and Sam's heavy breathing. "How many people are with Mark?" I ask.

"Five or so."

"Do you know which way they went?"

"I didn't see."

We push on and I have no idea in which direction we are headed. From far off I hear the groan of the tractor motor. The fourth ride is starting. I feel frantic inside and want to sprint, but I know that Sam can't keep up. He's breathing heavily already.

As we pass a thick tree with a knotted trunk I get tackled from behind. Sam yells as a fist hits me in the back of the head and I'm momentarily stunned, but then I pivot and grab the guy by the throat and shine the light in his face. He tries to peel my fingers away but it's useless.

"What is Mark planning?"

"Nothing," he says.

"Wrong answer."

I thrust him into the nearest tree five feet away, then I pick him up and lift him a foot off the ground with my hand again around his throat. His legs kick wildly, hitting me, but I tighten my muscles so that the kicks do no damage.

"What is he planning to do?" I lower him until his feet touch solid ground, loosening my grip to allow him to speak. I sense Sam watching, drinking all of this in, but there is nothing I can do about it.

"We just wanted to scare you guys," he gasps.

"I swear I will break you in half if you don't tell me the truth."

"He thinks that the others are dragging you two to Shepherd Falls. That's where he took Sarah. He wanted her to see him beat the crap out of you, and then he was going to let you go."

"Lead me," I say.

He shuffles forward and I turn my light off. Sam takes hold of my shirt and follows behind us. When we walk through a small clearing lit by the moonlight overhead I can see that he's looking at my hands. I'll explain to him what they were later I'm trying to stay focused on what's to come. We walk for nearly a minute until we hear the sound of running water just ahead of us.

"Give me your goggles," I say to the guy leading us.

He hesitates and I twist his arm. He writhes in pain and quickly rips them from his face.

"Take them, take them," he yells.

When I put them on the world turns to a shade of green. I push him hard and he falls to the ground.

"Come on," I say to Sam, and we walk ahead, leaving the guy behind.

Up ahead I see the group. I count eight guys, plus Sarah. "I can see them now. Do you want to wait here or come with me? It might get ugly."

"I want to come," Sam says. I can tell he's scared, though I'm not sure if it's because of what he's seen me do or the football players ahead of us.

I walk the rest of the way as silently as I can, Sam tiptoeing behind me. When we are just a few feet away a twig snaps beneath Sam's foot.

"John?" Sarah asks. She's sitting on a large rock with her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She isn't wearing goggles and squints in our direction.

"Yes," I say. "And Sam."

She smiles. "Told you," she says, and I assume she's talking to Mark.

The water I heard is nothing more than a small babbling brook. Mark steps forward.

"Well, well, well," he says.

"Shut up, Mark," I say. "I told you that the next time you did something that I would make you regret it, obviously you didn't heed that warning."

"You think? It's eight on two."

"Sam has nothing to do with this. You scared to face me alone?" I ask.

"What are you expecting to happen? You've tried kidnapping two people. Do you really think they'll keep silent?"

"Yeah, I do. When they see me whip your ass."

"You're delusional," I say, then turn to the others. "For those of you who don't want to go into the water, I suggest you leave now. Mark is going in no matter what. He's lost his chance to barter."

All of them snicker. One of them asks what "barter" means.

"Now's your last chance," I say. Every one of them stands firm. "So be it," I say.

A nervous excitement plants itself in the center of my chest. As I take one step forward Mark steps back and trips over his own feet, falling to the ground. Two of the guys come at me, both bigger than me. One swings but I duck his punch and send one of my own into his gut. He doubles over with his hands holding his stomach. I shove the second guy and his feet leave the ground. He lands with a thud five feet away and the momentum pushes him into the water. He comes up splashing. The others stand rooted, shocked. I sense Sam moving over toward Sarah. I grab hold of the first guy as he lays there getting his breath back and drag him across the ground. His errant kicks slice through the air but hit nothing. When we are at the bank of the brook I lift him by the waistband of his jeans and throw him into the water. Another guy lunges at me. I merely sidestep him and he lands face-first in the brook. Three down, four to go. I wonder how much of this Sarah and Sam can see without goggles on.

"You guys are making it too easy for me," I say. "Who's next?"

The biggest of the group throws a punch that comes nowhere near hitting me. I grab his outstretched arm and I judo throw him towards the water tumbling and rolling in.

"Any volunteers?"

Two of them hold their hands up in front of them in surrender; the third stands with his mouth gaping open like an idiot.

"That leaves you, Mark."

Mark turns as though he intends to run, but I lunge forward and grab him before he can, pulling his arms up into a full nelson. He writhes in pain.

"This ends right now, do you understand me?" I squeeze tighter and he grunts in pain. "Whatever you have against me, you drop it now. That includes Sam and Sarah. You understand?"

My grip tightens. I fear that if I squeeze any tighter his shoulder will pop from its socket.

"I said, do you understand me?"

"Yes!"

I drag him over to Sarah. Sam is sitting on the rock beside her now.

"Apologize."

"Come on, man. You've proven your point." I squeeze. "I'm sorry!" he yells.

"Say it like you mean it."

He takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he says.

"You're an asshole, Mark!" Sarah says and slaps him hard across the face.

He tenses, but I'm holding him firmly and there isn't a thing he can do about it. I drag him to the water. The rest of the guys stand watching in shock.

"You're not going to say a word to anybody about this, you understand me?" I say, my voice so low that only Mark can hear me. "Everything that has happened tonight, it dies here. I swear if I hear one word about it in school next week this is nothing compared to what will happen to you. Do you understand me? Not a single word."

"Do you really think I would say anything?" he asks.

"You make sure you tell your friends the same. If they tell a single soul it will be you that I come for."

"We won't say anything," he says.

I let go, put my foot on his butt, and push him face-first into the water. Sarah is standing at the rock with Sam beside her. She hugs me tightly when I get to her.

"Do you know kung fu or something?" she asks.

I laugh nervously. "Could you see much?"

"Not a lot, but I could tell what was happening. I mean, have you been training in the mountains your whole life or what? I don't understand how you did that."

"Well yeah almost, there was the past ten years of martial arts training."

"You're amazing." Sarah laughs.

"Let's get out of here."

None of the guys say a word to us. After ten feet I realize I have no idea where I'm going so I give the goggles to Sarah to lead the way.

"I can't friggin' believe that," Sarah says. "I mean, what an asshole. Wait till they try to explain it to the police. I'm not letting him get away with it."

"I think we should leave things alone, they won't say anything."

"Why shouldn't I after that? It was bullshit. Mark's dad's job is to enforce the law, even when his son breaks it."

I shrug in the darkness. "I think they received their punishment."

I bite my lip, terrified of the police getting involved. If they do I'll have to leave, no way around it. We'll be packed up and headed out of town within the hour of Henri knowing. I sigh.

"Don't you think?" I ask. "I mean, they've already lost several of the night-vision goggles. They'll have to explain that. And that's not to mention the icy cold water."

Sarah doesn't say anything. We walk in silence and I pray that she is debating the merits of letting it go. Eventually, the end of the woods comes into view. Light reaches in from the park. When I stop, Sarah and Sam both look at me. Sam has been silent the entire time and I'm hoping that it's because he couldn't really see what was happening, the dark for once serving as an unexpected ally, that maybe he's a little shaken up by everything.

"It's up to you guys," I say, "but I'm all for just letting the matter die. I really don't want to have to talk to police about what happened."

The light falls on Sarah's skeptical face. She shakes her head.

"I think he's right," Sam says. "I don't want to have to sit and write a stupid statement for the next half hour. I'll be in deep crap; my mom thinks I went to bed an hour ago."

"You live nearby?" I ask. He nods.

"Yeah, and I gotta go before she checks my room. I'll see you guys around."

Without another word, Sam hurries away. He's clearly rattled. He's probably never been in a fight and certainly never one where he was kidnapped and attacked in the woods. I'll try talking to him tomorrow or Monday. If he did see something he shouldn't have then Henri and I will have a talk with him about it.

Sarah turns my face to hers making sure I'm not all bruised and bloody from the fight then she traces both my brows, staring into my eyes.

"Thank you for tonight. I knew you were going to come."

I shrug. "I wasn't going to let him scare you."

She smiles and I can see her eyes glistening in the moonlight. She moves towards me and as I realize what's about to happen my breath catches in my throat. She presses her lips to mine and everything inside of me turns to rubber. It's a soft kiss, lingering. My first. Then she pulls away and her eyes take me in. I don't know what to say. A million different thoughts run through my head. My legs feel wobbly and I'm barely able to stay upright.

"I knew you were special the first time I saw you," she says.

"I felt the same with you."

She reaches up and kisses me again, her hand lightly pressed to my cheek. For the first few seconds, I'm lost in the feel of her lips on mine and in the idea that I'm with this beautiful girl. She pulls away and both of us smile at each other, saying nothing, staring into each other's eyes.

"Well, I think we better go see if Emily is still here," Sarah says after about ten seconds. "Or else I'll be stranded."

"I'm sure she is," I say.

We hold hands on the walk to the pavilion. I can't stop thinking about our kisses. The fifth tractor chugs along the trail. The trailer is full and there's still a line of ten or so people long waiting their turn. And after everything that happened in the woods, with Sarah's warm hand in mine, the smile doesn't leave my face.


	7. Chapter 7

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Seven-

Henri isn't happy when I find him just a bit later after saying goodbye to Sarah one last time. I tell him about what happened on the hayride and that I'm sure Sam saw my hands and is suspicious of me.

"You must go speak with him as soon as possible then if he knows or even suspects something alien that information that must not get out," Henri says with a scowl on his face.

"I'll go find him tomorrow and convince him that he didn't see anything," I say.

XXXXXXXX

Waking up that next morning I recall the night spent with Sarah and the fight that had occurred before remembering Sam. Getting up and heading out for the day I head towards his house. Sam lives on the outskirts of Paradise in a small, modest house. There's no answer when I knock so I try the door. It's unlocked and I open it and walkthrough.

Brown shag carpet covers the floors and family photographs from when Sam was very young hang on wood-paneled walls. He, his mother, and his father, who is wearing glasses every bit as thick as Sam's. Then I look closer. They look like the same pair of glasses.

I creep down the hallway until I find the door that must be to Sam's bedroom; a sign reading ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK hangs from a tack. The door is open a crack and I peer inside. The room is very clean, everything is consciously put in a place. His twin bed is made, has a black comforter with the planet Saturn repeated across it. Matching pillowcases. The walls are covered with posters. There are two NASA ones, the movie poster from Alien, a movie poster from Star Wars, and one that is a blacklight poster of a green alien head surrounded by dark felt. In the center of the room, hanging from a clear thread, is the solar system, all nine planets, and the sun. And then I see Sam, hunched over a small oak desk, with headphones on. I push the door open and he looks over his shoulder. He isn't wearing his glasses, and without them, his eyes look very small and beady, almost cartoonlike.

"What's up?" I ask casually as if I'm at his house every day.

He looks shocked and scared and he frantically pulls the headphones off to reach in one of the drawers. I look at his desk and see that he's reading a copy of They Walk Among Us. When I look back up he is pointing a gun at me.

"Whoa," I say, instinctively lifting my hands in front of me. "What's going on?"

He stands up. His hands are shaking. The gun is pointed at my chest. I think that he's lost his mind.

"Tell me what you are," he says.

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw what you did in those woods. You're not human."

I was afraid of this, that he saw more than I had hoped.

"This is crazy, Sam! I got into a fight. I've been doing martial arts for years."

"Your hands lit up like flashlights. You could throw people around like they were nothing. That's not normal."

"Don't be stupid," I say, my hands still in front of me. "Look at them. Do you see any lights? Put the gun down Sam."

"Tell me! What are you?" I roll my eyes.

"Yes, I'm an alien, Sam. I'm from a planet hundreds of millions of miles away. I have superpowers. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

He stares at me, his hands still shaking.

"Do you realize how stupid that sounds? Quit being crazy and put the gun down."

"Is what you just said true?"

"That you're being stupid? Yes, it's true. You're too obsessed with this stuff. You see aliens and alien conspiracies in every part of your life, including in your only friend. Now quit pointing that damn gun at me."

He stares at me, and I can tell he's thinking about what I said. I drop my hands. Then he sighs and lowers the gun.

"I'm sorry," he says.

I take a deep, nervous breath. "You should be. What the hell were you thinking?"

"It wasn't actually loaded."

"That doesn't help if you don't know that man," I say.

"Why do you want so badly to believe in this stuff?"

He shakes his head and puts the gun back in the drawer. I take a minute to calm myself down and try to act casual, like what just happened is no big deal.

"What are you reading?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Just more alien stuff. Maybe I should cool it a bit."

"Or just read it as fiction instead of fact," I say. "The stuff must be pretty convincing, though. Can I see it?"

He hands me the latest copy of They Walk Among Us and I sit tentatively on the edge of his bed. I think he's calmed down enough to not spring a gun on me again at least. Again, it is a bad photocopy, the print slightly unaligned with the paper. It isn't very thick—eight pages, twelve at the most, printed on legal-sized sheets. The date at the top reads November. It must be the newest issue. Flipping through the pages I find it on page 4.

THE MOGADORIAN RACE SEEK TO TAKE OVER EARTH

The Mogadorian alien race, from the planet Mogadore of the 9th Galaxy, has been on Earth for over ten years now. They are a vicious race on a quest for universal domination. They are rumored to have wiped out another planet, not unlike Earth, and are planning to expose Earth's weaknesses in a quest to inhabit our planet next.

(more to follow next issue)

I read the article three times. I was hoping there might be more to it than what Sam already said, but no such luck. And there is no Ninth Galaxy. I wonder where they got that from. I flip through the new issue twice. There is no mention of the Mogadorians. My first thought is that there was nothing left to report, that more news failed to present itself. But I don't believe that's the case. My second thought is that the Mogadorians read the issue and then fixed the problem, whatever the problem was.

"Do you mind if I borrow this?" I ask

He nods. "But be careful with it."

"This is weird stuff, Sam Goode," I say.

He smiles. "Weird people like weird stuff."

"Where do you get this?" I ask.

"I subscribe to it."

"I know, but how?" Sam shrugs.

"I don't know. It just started arriving one day."

"Are you subscribed to some other magazine? Perhaps they pulled your contact info from there."

"I went to a convention once. I think I signed up for some contest or something while I was there. I can't remember. I've always assumed that's where they got my address."

I scan the cover. There's no website listed anywhere on it, and I didn't expect there to be, considering that Henri has already searched the internet high and low. I flip the paper open to look for the publishing page that all newspapers and magazines have. There isn't one here, only more stories and theories.

"There isn't a publisher info page."

"What do you mean?"

"You know how magazines and newspapers always have that page listing staff, editors, writers, where it's being printed, and all that? You know, 'For questions, contact so and so.' All publications have them, but this doesn't."

"They have to protect their anonymity," Sam says.

"From what?"

"Aliens," he says, and smiles, as though acknowledging the absurdity of it.

XXXXXXXX

Three hours later, at noon, Sam's mother still isn't home. I ask Sam where she is and he shrugs as though he doesn't know and her absence is nothing new. Mostly we just play video games and watch TV and for lunch, we eat microwavable meals. The whole time I'm there he doesn't once wear his glasses, which is odd since I've never seen him without them before. Even when we ran the mile in gym class, he kept them on. I grab them from the top of his dresser and put them on. The world becomes an instant blur and they give me a headache almost immediately.

I look at Sam. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back against his bed, with a book of aliens in his lap.

"Jesus, is your vision really this bad?" I ask.

He looks up at me. "They were my dad's."

I take them off. "Do you even need glasses, Sam?"

He shrugs. "Not really."

"So why do you wear them?"

"They were my dad's."

I put them back on. "Wow, I don't see how you can even walk straight with these on."

"My eyes are used to them."

"You know these will screw up your vision if you continue wearing them, right?"

"Then I'll be able to see what my dad saw."

I take them off and put them back where I found them. I don't really understand why Sam wears them. For sentimental reasons? Does he really think it's worth it?

"Where is your dad, Sam?"

He looks up at me. "I don't know," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"He disappeared when I was seven."

"You don't know where he went?"

He sighs, drops his head, and resumes reading. Obviously, he doesn't want to talk about it.

"Do you believe in any of this stuff?" he asks after a few minutes of silence.

"Aliens?"

"Yeah."

"Yes, I believe in aliens."

"Do you think they really abduct people?"

"I have no idea. I guess we can't rule it out. Do you believe they do?"

He nods. "Most days. But sometimes the idea just seems stupid."

"I can understand that."

He looks up at me. "I think my dad was abducted," he says.

He tenses the second the words leave his mouth and a look of vulnerability crosses his face. It makes me believe that he has shared his theory before, with someone whose response was less than kind.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because he just disappeared. He went to the store to buy milk and bread, and he never came back. His truck was parked right outside the store but nobody there had seen him. He just vanished, and his glasses were on the sidewalk beside his truck." He pauses for a second. "I was worried you were here to abduct me."

It's a hard theory to believe. How could nobody have seen his father abducted if the incident occurred in the middle of town? Perhaps his dad had reason to leave and he plotted his own disappearance. It's not hard to make yourself disappear; Henri and I have been doing it for eleven years now. But all of a sudden Sam's interest in aliens makes perfect sense. Perhaps Sam just wants to see the world as his dad did, but maybe part of him truly believes that his dad's final sight is captured in the glasses, somehow etched into the lenses. Maybe he thinks that with persistence one day he'll eventually come to see it as well and that his dad's last vision will confirm what is already in his head. Or maybe he believes that if he searches long enough he'll finally come across an article that proves his father was abducted, and not only that but that he can be saved.

And who am I to say that he won't one day find that proof?

"I believe you," I say. "I think alien abductions are very possible."

XXXXXXXX

The first snowfall came two weeks later. A slight dusting, just enough to cover the truck with a fine powder. Since just after Halloween, once the Loric crystal spread the Lumen throughout my body, Henri has begun my real training. We've worked every day, without fail, through the cold weather and the rain and now the snow. We stand in the backyard, thirty feet apart, facing each other.

"Alright Henri let me have it"

He holds a kitchen knife in each hand.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

He throws the first knife down towards my leg, I conjure a power deep within me. It's basically second nature at this point snagging the knife out of the air and throwing back next to Henri.

"Again," Henri says.

He throws the second knife this time straight towards me center mass, I grab this one with my bare hands as it nears me.

"Come on Henri take the kid gloves off start going for real," I say, tossing the knife to him.

Henri nods and looks at the ground picking up the two knives.

"If you are so sure John."

He takes a knife in each hand and whips them towards me faster than normal. I grab them both with my mind, and just as I'm about to retort asking if that's all he's got I see three smaller knives flying towards me. I grab the first one out of the air and deflect another with it and using my Telekinesis I grab the last knife a foot away from my face.

"Good John, keep it up. Always expect the unexpected especially with what we are up against, you may never know when they will have something hidden up their sleeve." He says.

I can see the pride in his eyes as we stop for a break.

I am covered in sweat and mud and melted snow after our workout. Henri pushed me harder than normal today and came at me with a fierce determination to test my limits. Beyond the telekinesis practice, most of our session was spent drilling old techniques in combat, wrestling, mixed martial arts—followed by how to spot fear in the eyes of an opponent and then know how best to expose it. I have outpaced Henri in the strength and speed margin years back but when it comes to straight-up Martial Arts and hand-to-hand combat he still makes me work hard for the win and still sometimes even the loss.

XXXXXXXX

Sarah arrives right around dinner time. I walk outside and kiss her as she's coming up to the front porch. I take her coat from her and hang it when we're inside. Our home-ec midterm is a week away, and it was her idea to cook the meal before we'll have to prepare it in class. As soon as we begin cooking Henri grabs his jacket and goes for a walk. He takes Bernie Kosar with him and I'm thankful for the privacy. We make baked chicken breasts and potatoes and steamed vegetables, and the meal comes out far better than I had hoped. When all is ready the three of us sit and eat together. Henri is silent through most of it though he does applaud our culinary skills. Sarah and I break the awkward silence with small talk, about school, about our going to the movies the following Saturday. Henri rarely looks up from his plate and just watches us interact, I can tell that something is on his mind though

When dinner is over Sarah and I wash the dishes and retreat to the couch. Sarah brought a movie over and we watch it on our small TV, but Henri mostly stares out the window. Halfway through he gets up with a sigh and walks outside. Sarah and I watch him go. We hold hands and she leans against me with her head on my shoulder. Bernie Kosar sits beside her with his head in her lap, a blanket draped over both of them. It may be cold and blustery outside, but it's warm and cozy in our living room.

"Is your dad okay?" Sarah asks.

"I don't know. He's been acting weird."

"He was really quiet during dinner."

"Yeah, I'm going to go check on him. I'll be right back," I say, and follow Henri outside.

He's standing on the porch—looking out into the darkness.

"So what's going on?" I ask.

He looks up at the stars in contemplation. "Something doesn't feel right," he says.

"What do you mean?"

"You're not going to like it."

"Okay. Let's have it."

"I don't know how much longer we should stay here. It doesn't feel safe to me, and with no new leads on Malcolm our objective here is basically a dead end."

My heart sinks and I stay silent.

"They're frantic, and I think they're getting close. I can feel it. I don't think we're safe here."

"I don't want to leave."

"I knew you wouldn't."

"We've kept hidden."

Henri looks at me with a raised brow. "No offense, John, but I hardly think you've stayed in the shadows."

"I have where it counts."

He nods. "I guess we'll see."

He walks to the edge of the porch and places his hands on the rail. I stand beside him. New snowflakes start falling, sifting down, specks of white shimmering on an otherwise dark night.

"That's not all," Henri says.

"I didn't think it was."

He sighs. "I'm not sure that this relationship with Sarah is a good idea."

I look over at him. His eyes are full of concern, and creases of worry traverse the length of his forehead.

"We don't know when we must leave, it could come at any time and I don't want you holding onto the hope of having a future with her."

"So what are you telling me?"

"I don't know how much we can expect from here on out," he says and pauses. "I think you should break up with her soon and I think we should leave."

I watch the snowfall, unable to decide whether I should be angry or sad.

"So what am I supposed to do? Break up with her shortly after we got together and then we move away again? I say with incredulity. " Henri we still don't know what happened to Malcolm, at least let me talk with Sam we can tell him who we are and who his dad was maybe he will know something?"

Henri just stares up at the stars. "Right there," he says. "Right there is where Lorien is."

Of course, I know full well where Lorien is without having to be told. There is a certain pull, a certain way that my eyes always gravitate towards the spot where, billions of miles away, Lorien sits.

"But whether or not you want to go to a new town or not doesn't mean the Mogadorians are going to stop searching for you. And if we get careless and settle, you can be assured they'll find us. And as soon as they do, they'll kill us both. We can fight them and maybe you are strong enough to beat the first wave they send at us but after that, they could just overwhelm us with sheer numbers. There's no way to change that. No way."

I know he's right. Somehow, like Henri, I can sense that much, can feel it in the dead of night when the hairs on my arms stand at attention when a slight shiver crawls up my spine even though I'm not cold.

"Do you ever regret sticking with me for this long?"

"Regret it? Why do you think I would regret it?"

"Because there's nothing for us to go back to. Your family is dead. So is mine. On Lorien, there is only a life of rebuilding. If it wasn't for me you could easily create an identity here and spend the rest of your days becoming a part of someplace. You could have friends, maybe even fall in love again."

Henri laughs. "I'm already in love. And I'll continue to be until the day that I die. I don't expect you to understand that. Lorien is different from Earth."

I sigh with exasperation. "But still, you could be a part of somewhere."

"I am a part of somewhere. I'm a part of Paradise, Ohio, right now, with you."

I shake my head. "You know what I mean, Henri."

"What is it that you think I'm missing?"

"A life."

"You are my life, kiddo. You and my memories are my only ties to the past. Without you I have nothing. That's the truth."

Just then the door opens behind us. Bernie Kosar comes trotting out ahead of Sarah, who is standing in the doorway half in and half out.

"Are you two really going to make me watch this movie all by my lonesome?" she asks.

Henri smiles at her. "Wouldn't dream of it," he says.

After the movie, Henri and I drive Sarah home. When we get there I walk her to her front door and we stand on the stoop smiling at each other. I kiss her good night, a lingering kiss while holding both her hands gently in mine.

"See you tomorrow," she says, squeezing my hands. "Sweet dreams."

I walk back to the truck. Henri pulls out of Sarah's driveway and steers towards home. I can't help feeling a sense of fear while remembering Henri's words the day he picked me up from my first full day of school: "Just keep in mind we might have to leave at a moment's notice." He's right, and I know it, but I've never felt this way about anyone before. Like I'm floating on air when we're together, and I dread the times when we're apart, like now, despite having just spent the last couple of hours with her. Sarah gives some purpose to our running and hiding, a reason that transcends mere survival. A reason to win. And to know that I may be putting her life in danger by being with her—well, it terrifies me. When we get back, Henri walks into his bedroom and comes out carrying the Chest. He drops it on the kitchen table.

"Really?" I ask.

"Really," He responds

We interlock hands around the lock and it springs apart in our hands. Henri opens up the chest pulling out the diamond knife blade and the spherical red crystal that turns into the bracelet before setting them down and relocking the chest. I remember the first time picking that one up it sent a bad feeling up my spine and a tingle up my arm. Thankfully Henri told me that's how it adjusts to the user before I had dropped it.

"John if we are going to stay here you must adhere to what rule I'm going to put forth okay?" Henri says.

"What is it"

"You must keep the bracelet on you at all times, the knife we will start practicing with until you are proficient with it and at the next sign of trouble be it tomorrow or a month from now we will leave immediately."

He is looking at me sternly now, I can tell that he is serious and won't take no for an answer.

"Okay I'll keep the bracelet on and I'll agree that if something major happens we will leave but if it comes to that can I at least say goodbye if we have time?" I plead to him.

"Very well, but only if we have the time I'll allow it. We don't want to risk ourselves any more than we have to."


	8. Chapter 8

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Eight-

The next day I wake up earlier than normal, crawl out of bed, and walk out of my room to find Henri sitting at the table scanning the papers with his laptop open. The sun is still hidden, and the house is dark, the only light coming from his computer screen.

"Anything?"

"Nah, nothing really."

I turn on the kitchen light. Bernie Kosar paws at the front door. I open it and he shoots out into the yard and patrols as he does every morning, head up, trotting around the perimeter looking for anything suspicious. He sniffs at random places. Once satisfied that everything is as it should be, he bolts into the woods and disappears. Two issues of They Walk Among Us are lying atop the kitchen table, the original and a photocopy that Henri has made to keep for himself. A magnifying glass lies between them.

"Anything unique on the original?"

"No."

"So, now what?" I ask.

"Well, I have had some luck. I cross-referenced some of the other articles in the issue and got a few hits, one of which led me to a man's personal website. I sent him an email."

I stare at Henri.

"Don't worry," he says. "They can't track emails. At least not the way I send them."

"How do you send them?"

"I reroute them through various servers in cities across the world, so that the original location is lost along the way."

"Impressive."

Bernie Kosar scratches at the door and I let him in. The clock on the microwave reads 5:59. I have two hours before I have to be at school.

"Do you really think we want to go digging around in all this?" I ask. "I mean, what if it's all a trap? What if they are simply trying to root us out of hiding?"

Henri nods. "You know, if the article had mentioned anything about us, that might have given me pause. But it didn't. It was about their invading Earth, much the same way they did Lorien. There is so much about it that we don't understand. The entire situation with the disappearance of the Elders also doesn't make sense. If we one day make it back, I think it's imperative to understand what happened in order to prevent it from happening again. You know the saying: he who doesn't understand history is doomed to repeat it. And when it's repeated, the stakes are doubled."

"So what's our plan then?"

Henri shrugs. "There are still five others out there. Perhaps they've received their Legacies. I think it's best to plan for all possibilities."

"Well, what are you planning to about these guys?"

"Just make a phone call. I'm curious to hear what this person knows. I wonder what caused him to not follow up. One of two possibilities: either he found no other information and lost interest in the story, or somebody got to him after the publication."

I sigh. "Well, be careful," I say.

I pull on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt over two T-shirts, tie my tennis shoes and stand and stretch. I toss into my backpack the clothes I plan to wear to school, along with a towel, a bar of soap, and a small bottle of shampoo so I can shower when I get there. I look down at Bernie Kosar.

"Ready for a run, boy?"

His tail wags and he turns in circles.

'Yes! Yes! Yes!' He says nearly shouting in excitement in my mind.

"See you after school Henri."

"Have a good run," says Henri. "Be careful on the road."

We walk out the door and cold, brisk air meets us.

Bernie Kosar barks excitedly a few times. 'Let's go already!'

I start at a slight jog, down the drive, out onto the gravel road, the dog trotting beside me as I thought he would. It takes a quarter mile to warm up.

"Ready to step it up a notch, boy?"

He pays me no attention, just keeps trotting along with his tongue dangling, looking happy as can be.

"All right then, here we go."

I kick it into high gear, moving into a run, and then into a dead sprint shortly after, going as fast as I can. I leave Bernie Kosar in the dust. I look behind me and he is running as fast as he can, yet I am already so far ahead of him. The wind through my hair, the trees passing in a blur. It all feels great. Then Bernie Kosar bolts into the woods and disappears from sight. I'm not sure if I should stop and wait for him. Then he jumps out of the woods ten feet in front of me. I look down at him and he looks up at me, tongue to the side, a sense of glee in his eyes.

"You're an odd dog, you know that?"

'I am just as odd as you are.'

After a couple of minutes, the school comes into view. I sprint the remaining half mile, exerting myself, running as hard as I can because it is so early that there is no one out and about to see me. I have barely exerted myself, these runs to school are no longer tiring to me. Bernie Kosar arrives thirty seconds later and sits watching me. I kneel down and pet him.

"Good job, buddy."

I pull my bag from over my shoulders, unzip it, and remove a package with a few strips of bacon and I give them to him. He scarfs them down.

"Okay, boy, I'm heading in. Go on home. Henri's waiting."

He watches me for a second and then goes off trotting towards home. I turn and walk into the building and head for the shower.

XXXXXXXX

I am the second person to enter astronomy. Sam is the first, already sitting in his normal seat at the back of the class.

"Whoa," I say. "No glasses. What gives?"

He shrugs. "I thought about what you said. It's probably stupid for me to wear them."

I sit beside him and smile. It's hard to imagine I'll ever get used to his eyes looking so beady. I give him back the issue of They Walk Among Us. He tucks it into his bag. I hold up my fingers like a gun and nudge him.

"Bang!" I say.

He starts laughing. Then I do, too. Neither of us can stop. Every time one of us is close the other starts laughing and it begins all over again. People stare at us when they enter. Then comes Sarah. She walks in by herself, saunters up to us with a look of confusion, and sits in the seat beside me.

"What are you guys laughing at?"

"I'm not really sure," I say, and then laugh a little more.

Mark is the last person to walk in. He sits in his usual seat, but instead of Sarah sitting beside him today, there's another girl. I think she's a senior. Sarah reaches beneath the table and grabs hold of my hand.

"There is something I need to talk to you about," she says.

"What?"

"I know it's last-minute, but my parents want to have you and your dad over for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow."

"Wow. That would be awesome. I have to ask, but I know we don't have plans, so I assume the answer is yes."

She smiles. "Great."

"Since it's just the two of us, we don't usually even do Thanksgiving."

"Well, we really go all out. And my brothers will both be home from college. They want to meet you."

"How do they know about me?"

"How do you think?"

The teacher walks in and Sarah winks, then we both start taking notes.

XXXXXXXX

Henri is waiting for me as usual, Bernie Kosar propped up on the passenger seat with his tail wagging, thumping the side of the door the second he sees me. I slide in.

"Athens, Ohio."

"What about it?"

"That's where the issues of They Walk Among Us are being written, and printed. It's where they are being mailed."

"How did you find that out?"

"I have my ways."

I look at him.

"Okay, okay. It took three emails and five phone calls, but now I have the number." He looks over at me. "That is to say, it wasn't all that hard to find with a little effort."

I nod. I know what he is telling me. The Mogadorians would have found it just as easily as he did. Which means, of course, that the scale now tips in favor of Henri's second possibility—that somebody got to the publisher before the story further developed.

"How far away is Athens?"

"Two hours by car."

"Are you going?"

"I hope not. I'm going to call first."

When we get home Henri immediately picks up the phone and sits at the kitchen table. I sit down across from him and listen.

"Yes, I'm calling to inquire about an article in last month's issue of They Walk Among Us."

A deep voice responds on the other end. I can't hear what is said. Henri smiles.

"Yes," he says, then pauses.

"No, I'm not a subscriber. But a friend of mine is."

Another pause. "No, thank you."

He nods his head. "Well, I'm curious about the article written on the Mogadorians. There was never a follow-up in this month's issue as expected."

I lean in and strain to hear, my body tense and rigid. When the reply comes the voice sounds shaken, disturbed. Then the phone goes dead.

"Hello?" Henri pulls the phone away from his ear, looks at it, then brings it back in. "Hello?" he says again.

Then he closes the phone and sets it on the table. He looks at me.

"He said, 'Don't call here again.' Then he hung up on me."

XXXXXXXX

After debating it for several hours, Henri and I wake up the next morning and while Henri prints door-to-door directions from here to Athens, Ohio. I am getting a quick workout in to loosen up my nerves for what's to come. The plan is for us to drive to Athens early in the morning find out all the info we need then get out of there and make it back in time for the Thanksgiving dinner with Sarah's family. I finish my workout and head back inside to hit the road, finding Henri at the table looking over his papers and the laptop with the directions still on the screen.

"Are you sure this is worth it?" I ask.

"We have to figure out what's going on."

I sigh. "I think we both know what is going on."

"Maybe," he says, but with full authority and none of the uncertainty usually accompanying the word.

"But I want to find out what they have done to scare this man so badly. I want to know if they have mentioned us if they are searching for us by means that we haven't yet thought of. It will help us to stay hidden, stay ahead of them. And if this man has seen them, we'll learn what they look like."

"We already know what they look like."

"We knew what they looked like when they attacked, over eleven years ago, but they might have changed. They've been on Earth for a long time now. I want to know how they're blending in."

"Even if we know what they look like, by the time we see them on the street, it's probably going to be too late."

"Maybe, maybe not. I see one, I'm going to try and kill it. There's no guarantee it's going to be able to kill me," he says, this time with the uncertainty and none of the authority.

I concede that if things go well it could possibly give us the advantage we've been needing.

"You sure we'll be back on time?" I ask.

"We are leaving now, which puts us there about nine. I doubt It'll take more than an hour, two at the most. So we should be back by one."

We walk out to the truck and get inside. Bernie Kosar of course jumping in ahead of me wanting to come along for the adventure.

XXXXXXXX

We drive south until, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Athens comes into view: a small city sprouting through the trees. In the waning light, I can see a river curling gently around that seems to cup the city, serving as the border to the east, south, and west, and to the north lie hills and trees. The temperature is relatively warm for November. We pass the college football stadium. A white-domed arena stands a little beyond it.

"Take this exit," I say. Henri guides the truck off the interstate and turns right onto Richland Avenue.

"So this is what a college town looks like, huh?"

"I guess so," Henri says.

Buildings and dorms are on each side of us. The grass is green, meticulously trimmed even though it is November. We drive up a steep hill.

"At the top of this is Court Street. We want to turn left."

"How far are we?" Henri asks.

"Less than a mile."

"I think we should park the first opportunity we get and walk."

We drive down Court Street, which is the main artery in the center of town. Everything is closed for the holiday—bookstores, coffeehouses, bars. We drive a couple of blocks until we find a lot to park in. By my guess, we are a five-minute walk at most from the address.

We leave BK in the truck as Henri and I walk back up Court Street, before finding the house. Henri decides that it would be best if I hang back and stay out of sight while he goes up to talk with them. So I try and find an area where I can see Henri as he talks with the people inside.

He walks right up and knocks on the door, and just a minute or so later a big man opens the door. He is big, at least six feet six, two hundred fifty pounds. He has a goatee and his head is shaved. He's wearing work boots, blue jeans, and a black sweatshirt pulled up to his elbows. There is a tattoo on his right forearm but I cannot see it from this distance. I can tell that whatever Henri is saying is making the man nervous but he backs up and it looks like he is inviting Henri inside though just as Henri enters the house I see another man with dark shaggy hair, not as big as the other man, but not exactly small either. He has a short stick that he uses to club Henri in the back of the head, the man turns around and shuts the door. I have lost sight of them and Henri is in trouble. I don't even think about the repercussions I blitz over to the house and kick open the door.

Henri is on the floor with the first man binding his hands with some rope as the second man is taping his legs together, I then see a third person standing behind all of them he seemed to have been in the middle of a phone call when I kicked open the door.

"Wh.. What the hell!?" The first man says looking up at me.

I dont bother responding, I grab the man on the phone with my Telekinesis and fling him backwards into a wall, and the man closest to me, the one at Henri's feet gets up to swing at me, I duck under his wild haymaker and plant my fist directly into his gut, knocking the wind out of him. Pushing him over I move in closer to the next. The first man by now has grabbed a baseball bat and comes running up to hit me with it, wanting to test my strength. I let him strike against my arms that are poised to defend my face and the bat shatters against them. I see his stunned face as he looks between his bat and me, I just slug him across the jaw and watch him drop.

I thought I had them all until I hear a distinctive click as the man I threw to begin with, is holding a gun and pointing it right at my face.

"Hold it right there, I know what you are and I will not let you guys take over earth and kill me and my friends!" He basically shouts at me, with spittle flying towards me.

He's standing right on the other side of Henri from me I dont know what to expect with these people but the sooner I can diffuse the situation and get Henri out the better.

"I don't know what you are talking about," I say, hands raised to show that I am not a threat.

"They already told us all about you, they told us you might be coming. That you would look like humans. That you were the real enemy," the man says. "They are on their way here now and I'm going to make sure they get you."

It doesn't look like I'm getting out of here without taking care of this man first then. I use my Telekinesis again to try and grab the gun from him, only to meet some brief resistance as he has a vice grip on the gun. He sends off a couple of shots amidst the struggle and I point my hand towards the bullets and I make them all stop. I move the bullets so that they hang in front of the man's face.

"Wha... What did you...," he struggles to say confused as to what just happened.

I don't give him a second, dropping the bullets I leap over Henri and tackle the man to the ground and smash his head into the floor. He goes limp immediately.

Getting off the man I crawl over to Henri tearing the tape and rope off of him. I try to wake him up by slapping his face a couple of times and giving him a shake, I get a couple of grunts and his eyes crack open for a second before closing again.

"Henri come on wake up, come on please wake up," I'm worried that the blow to his head did a lot of damage.

"Ugh... John what's happening," he manages to get out.

"Oh thank Lorien you're still alive. They knocked you out as soon as you got inside, I broke down the door and took them all out."

"Really? Ow... No wonder my head is pounding," he says while grasping his head.

"Come on let's get you up and seated, then I'll try and wake one of them up."

I get him rested into a chair in their kitchen before going back to the front door, I pick it up off the floor and lean it up against the now broken door frame. I take two of them and drag them into the kitchen before going back for the third. The guy that I knocked the wind out of with a gut punch is the only one that stirs when I move them, so starting with him I slap him hard across the face while holding him upside down with my Telekinesis. He yelps shaking his head trying to orient himself, I flip him right side up and set him on his feet but I keep a grip on him.

"Start talking. What do you know about us."

"No!" he yells. "They said they'd kill me."

I raise him up and I start to squeeze him with my mind.

"There were three of them!" he yells, talking fast. "They showed up the same day we sent out the magazines. They showed up that night."

"What did they look like?" Henri asks.

I had forgotten he was there for a second as I turn to look at him to make sure he's okay.

"Like ghosts. They were pale, almost like albinos. They wore sunglasses, but when we wouldn't talk one of them took the sunglasses off. They had black eyes and pointy teeth, but they didn't look natural like an animal's would. Theirs looked as though they had been broken and chiseled. They all wore long coats and hats like some shit out of an old spy movie. What the hell more do you want?"

"Why did they come?"

"They wanted to know our source for the story. We told them. A man had called, said he had an exclusive for us, started raging about a group of aliens that wanted to destroy our civilization. But he called on the day we were printing, so instead of writing the full story, we put in a small quip and said more to follow next month. He talked so fast that we hardly grasped what he was saying. We were planning on calling him the next night, only that didn't happen, because the Mogadorians showed up instead."

"How did you know they were Mogadorians?"

"What the hell else could they have been? We wrote a story about the Mogadorian race of aliens and lo and behold a group of aliens shows up on our doorstep the same day wanting to know where we got the story. It wasn't hard to figure out."

The man is cooperating so I set him back down and loosen up on my grip holding him

"And that's the only time they came?" says Henri.

The man shakes his head. "They came back."

"Why?"

"To make sure we didn't print anything else. I don't think they trusted us, but the man who called us never answered his phone again, so we had nothing else to print."

"So they knew where he lived?"

"They had the phone number we were supposed to call him back on. I'm sure they could have figured it out."

"So they threatened you? With what, what did they do?"

"Hell, yes. They trashed our office. They screwed with my mind. I haven't been the same since."

"What'd they do to your mind?" He closes his eyes and takes another deep breath. "They didn't even look real," he says. "I mean, here are these three men standing in front of us talking in deep, raspy voices, all in trench coats and hats and sunglasses even though it was nighttime. It looked like they were dressed up for a Halloween party or something. They looked funny and out of place, so at first I laughed at them…," he says, his voice trailing off. "But the second I laughed I knew I had made a mistake. The other two Mogadorians started towards me with their sunglasses off. I tried to look away, but I couldn't. Those eyes. I had to look, as though something was pulling me there. It was like seeing death. My own death, and the deaths of all the people I know and love. Things weren't so funny anymore. Not only did I have to witness the deaths, but I could feel them, too. The uncertainty. The pain. The complete and utter terror. I wasn't in that room anymore. And then came things I've always feared as a kid. Images of stuffed animals that came to life, with sharp teeth as mouths, razor blades for claws. The usual stuff all kids are afraid of. Werewolves. Demonic clowns. Giant spiders. I viewed them all through the eyes of a child, and they absolutely terrified me. And every time one of those things bit into me, I could feel its teeth rip the flesh from my body, I could feel the blood pour from the wounds. I couldn't stop screaming."

"Did you try to fight back at all?"

"They had two of these little weasel-looking things, fat, with short legs. No bigger than a dog. They were frothing at the mouth. One of the men was holding them on a leash, but you could tell they were hungry for us. They said they would turn them loose if we resisted. I'm telling you, man, these things weren't from Earth. If they were dogs, big deal, we would have fought back. But I think those things would have eaten us whole despite our size. And they were pulling against the leash, growling, trying to get to us."

"So you talked?"

"Yes."

"When did they come back?"

"The night before the next magazine went out, a little over a week ago."

Henri gives me a concerned look. Only one week ago the Mogadorians were within a hundred miles of where we live. They could still be here somewhere, maybe monitoring the paper. Perhaps that is why Henri has felt their presence of late.

"Why didn't they just kill you like they did your source?"

"How the hell do I know? Maybe because we publish a respectable paper."

"How did the man who called know about the Mogadorians?"

"He said he had captured one of them and tortured it."

"Where?"

"I don't know. His phone number was from the area code near Columbus. So north of here. Maybe sixty or eighty miles north."

"You spoke to him?"

"Yeah. And I wasn't sure if he was crazy or not, but we had heard rumors about something like this before. He started talking about them wanting to wipe out civilization as we know it, and sometimes he talked so fast that it was hard to make sense of anything he said. One thing he kept repeating was that they were here hunting something, or somebody. Then he started spouting numbers."

My eyes open wide. "What numbers? What did they mean?"

"I have no idea. Like I said, he was talking so fast that it was all we could do to write it all down."

"You wrote while he talked?" Henri says.

"Of course we did. We're journalists," he says incredulously. "Do you think we make up the stories we write?"

"Yeah, I do," says Henri.

"Do you still have the notes that you wrote?" I say.

He looks at me and nods. "I'm telling you, they're worthless. Most of what I wrote are scribbles on their plan to destroy the human race."

"I need to see them," I nearly bellow. "Where, where are they?"

"Upstairs they are on my desk, on sticky notes." I dash upstairs and over to the desk, which is covered with papers, and start looking through the sticky notes. I find some very vague notes on the Mogadorians' hope to conquer Earth. Nothing concrete, no plans or details, just a few indistinct words:

"Overpopulation"

"Earth's resources"

"Biological warfare?"

"The Planet Mogadore."

I come to the note I'm looking for. I read it carefully three or four times.

Planet Lorien?

The Loric?

1–3 dead

4?

7 trailed in Spain.

9 on the run in SA

(what is he talking about? What do these numbers have to do with invading Earth?)

"Why is there a question mark after the number 4?" I ask once I get back downstairs.

"Because he said something about it but he talked too fast and I didn't get it."

"You've got to be kidding me?"

He shakes his head. I sigh. Just my luck, I think. The one thing said about me is the one thing that wasn't written.

"What does 'SA' mean?" I ask.

"South America."

"Did he say where in South America?"

"No."

I nod, stare at the slip of paper. I wish I could have heard the conversation, that I could have asked questions of my own. Do the Mogadorians really know where Seven is? Are they really following him or her? If so, the Loric charm still holds. I fold the sticky notes and slip them into my back pocket.

"Do you know what the numbers mean?" he asks.

I shake my head. "I have no idea."

"I don't believe you," he says.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" I ask.

He thinks about it for a moment, then says, "I think bright light bothers them. It seemed to cause them pain when they took their sunglasses off."

"Alright John I think we have heard enough," Henri says.

"I'm going to let you go now," I say to the man I am still holding. "We are going to let you guys go and then we are going to walk out of here, okay?"

The man nods fervently but doesn't say anything else. I walk over to Henri after letting go and take one of his arms and toss it over my shoulder helping him to his feet and we walk out of there.

XXXXXXXX

I help Henri walk to the truck, Bernie is there waiting for us. I put Henri into the passenger seat and hop into the driver's seat thankful that Henri had taught me how to drive. We pull out of Athens and I tell Henri everything that I was able to do, stopping the bullets and letting the man shatter a bat on my arms. It felt good to be this powerful.


	9. Chapter 9

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Nine-

We get home just before one in the afternoon, about the time we suspected it would take us and we have two and a half hours before we are supposed to be at Sarah's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

“I'm pretty sure they don't know where we are and if they did they'd be following us now.” 

He stays silent for a second before responding.

"I think so as well, but this does put us in a dangerous position. We have a record of staying on the move so it's safe to assume that they would believe we left after what happened. But we don’t know what kind of tracking technology they have, so I don’t think it will take them long to find us."

My Legacies haven’t all emerged yet, but enough of them have. I took down three grown men. They didn’t stand a chance. It was like fighting with little kids. I could do anything I wanted to them. We also now know that humans can also fight, and capture, and hurt, and kill Mogadorians. 

I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt in my life. I am not running. I love my life in Paradise. I love having a real friend, and I love my girlfriend. I’m ready to fight for what I love. 

Henri surprises me as he walks up to me and he hugs me. 

“I’m proud of how far you’ve come. I can see the determination within you. You know my entire life is devoted to keeping you safe and making you strong. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. If you died on my watch, I’m not sure how I would go on. In time the Mogadorians will catch up with us. I want us to be ready for them when they come. We can stay here, for now even with what happened because I know you want to stay. But at the first sign that they’re nearby, or are on our trail, we leave, no questions asked, no fighting about it. We leave with what we got before I had agreed that you could say goodbye. Now I'm telling you we can't afford that since they are really close. Can you agree to that?" 

“Yeah I can,” I say, and smile.

XXXXXXXX

We both get ourselves ready for dinner with Sarah's family and it will actually be the first one we’ve ever had. We get in the truck and leave BK at the house and we eventually pull up outside their house, as I walk up the driveway I see Sarah peek out the window. She smiles and waves, opening the front door just as I step onto her porch. 

“Hey, handsome,” she says. 

I turn and look over my shoulder to Henri and pretend she’s talking to him. Then I turn back around and ask her if she’s talking to me or Henri. She laughs. 

“You’re silly,” she says and punches me in the arm before pulling me close to give me a lingering kiss. "Hello, Henri."

"Hello Sarah it's nice to see you again," Henri replies with a smile.

I take a deep breath and can smell the food: turkey and stuffing, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, pumpkin pie. 

“Smells great,” I say. 

“My mom has been cooking all day.” 

“Can’t wait to eat.” 

We go inside and she takes me on a tour while Henri goes off to speak with her parents. It’s a great house. A classic family home with bedrooms on the second floor, an attic where one of her brothers has his room, and all of the living spaces—the living room, dining room, kitchen, and family room—on the first floor. When we get to her room, she closes the door and kisses me. I’m surprised but thrilled. 

“I’ve been looking forward to doing that all day,” she says softly when she pulls away. 

As she walks towards the door, I pull her back to me and kiss her again. 

“And I’m looking forward to kissing you again later,” I whisper. 

She smiles softly at me. We head back downstairs and she takes me to the family room, where her two older brothers, home from college for the weekend, are watching football with her father. Henri is sitting with them and I join them, while Sarah goes to the kitchen to help her mother and her younger sister with dinner. I’ve never been that into football. I guess, because of the way Henri and I have lived, I’ve never really gotten into anything outside of our life. My concerns were always with trying to get stronger and to train wherever we were, and then getting ready to go somewhere else. Her brothers, and her father, all played football in high school. They love it. And in today’s game, one of her brothers and her father like one of the teams, while her other brother likes the other team. They argue with each other, taunt each other, cheer and groan depending on what’s happening in the game. They’ve clearly been doing this for years, probably for their entire lives, and they’re clearly having a great time. It's at times like this that I wish Henri and I had something, besides my training and our endless running and hiding, that we were both into and that we could enjoy with each other. It makes me wish I had a real father and brothers to hang out with. 

At halftime, Sarah’s mother calls us in for dinner. The table looks amazing. There are flowers in the center, with placemats and table settings meticulously placed in front of each of the chairs. Serving dishes of food are spread around the inside of the table, with the turkey sitting in front of Mr. Hart’s place. Just after I sit down, Mrs. Hart comes into the room. She has taken off her apron and is wearing a beautiful skirt and sweater. 

“I hope everyone is hungry and ready to be stuffed?” she says. 

“Most certainly Annie thank you again for inviting the both of us to have dinner with your family,” Henri says. 

"It's no problem, especially after hearing that it's just been you two for holidays all these years." Mrs. Hart says with a wide smile.

Mr. Hart starts carving the turkey. Sarah smiles at me from across the table which just solidifies this being the best holiday ever. The food starts being passed, and I take the smallest portions of everything at first not wanting to look like a slob in front of Sarah's family. 

Dinner flies by and soon we are all sitting in the living room joking and just enjoying each other's company. Henri for once doesn't have that worrying crease across his brow. Time starts to move in slow motion, I can see everyone around me talking, or at least trying to. It's like it takes a minute just for someone's lips to close in between words. It must be a new legacy forming, some kind of slow-motion, or enhanced perception legacy. All of a sudden the world snaps back in place and I'm bombarded with a cacophony of sound. My stomach lurches and I topple over in my chair. I can hear shouting as people crowd near me, it takes a minute to realize where I am and I can tell that I'm in Sarah's lap with Henri kneeling down next to me saying something.

"John, John can you hear me what happened?" He looks frightened.

"I'm... I'm okay I think, I got really dizzy and felt weird," It takes me a second to get accustomed to hearing again.

"I'm sorry to cut this short but I think it best that we head home early," Henri says as he reaches down and helps me up.

Sarah’s whole family helps me out the door and inside the truck. Sarah gives me a quick kiss on my forehead before shutting the door.

A chill shoots up my back. My breath catches in my throat and at the same time the truck and everything outside of it slows down again. I'm a little more prepared this time and I shut my eyes and try to meditate waiting for the whiplash of sound again. It comes back and it sets off my equilibrium but thankfully I'm in the truck and it's just a bit disorienting this time. Henri noticed my brief discomfort, he reaches over and grabs my shoulder.

"We are almost home John, try and relax if you can. Focus on your breathing and take control of your emotions."

I know he's trying to help, but it's just so hard, this one just throws me off-kilter and is so disorienting. Thankfully it doesn't take long, and we are pulling up to the house. I'm able to get myself into the house with little issues and I collapse onto the couch and I feel myself drifting off into sleep.

XXXXXXXX

I wake up out on the couch covered by a blanket and a pillow under my head, Henri must have helped me get into a more comfortable position after I passed out. Getting up I make my way into the kitchen to find Henri sitting at the table surfing the web as usual. He looks up to me as soon as I enter and he is checking me over making sure I am not injured at all.

"What happened yesterday John?" He says.

"Yesterday," I say a little confused.

"Yes, I got you home just after six and it is now just afternoon. You slept for eighteen hours."

It takes me a second to wrap my head around sleeping for so long.

"Did you get any rest or did you stay up watching over me?"

"I stayed up, of course, you were in a dead sleep and defenseless. I wasn't about to go to sleep especially without any answers into what happened to you."

"I'm not quite sure, everything slowed down. It was like I was moving normally but everyone around me was going in slow motion until suddenly there was a bunch of sounds and I couldn't tell up from down."

"A new legacy already? This is amazing news John," Henri looks excited by this news.

I'm not sure whether it is a good thing or not it was so disorienting and made me sick to my stomach. Though I can see the advantage of it if I can get control over it.

"What is it?"

"I don't know the name of it, it's only been theorized to exist but it has sometimes been called Aevitas we don't know the extent of the abilities but it is essentially the control or manipulation of time," Henri looks at me in awe.

"What do you mean you don't know, and that no one has had it before?"

"We know of many legacies and that there is the manipulation of just about everything. The elements and the mind, of sound and gravity. So it stands within reason that time would be included as well, but in all of our time as a species, you are the first person to have it."

"Do you know how to help me train it like with Lumen?"

"Unfortunately not, this will be touch and go process. Can you explain how it felt and what you could do?"

"Well I was just listening to everyone talk and then randomly I didn't hear anything and it took forever for anything to happen, like people talking or their mouths moving then all of a sudden there was just a bunch of noise all at once like the sound was catching up to me and I got sick to my stomach. And I couldn't tell up from down which is why I think I ended on the ground."

"Hmm I'm not sure what to think just yet, the only thing that I can recommend is doing some meditations and to isolate yourself and try to call upon it. Try and get a feeling for it and maybe over time the vertigo will lessen," Henri says. "I think that it's for the best that you stay isolated until you have at least a semblance of control over this, we don't want anything bad to happen while you are at school or in an unprotected environment."

"Okay, I don't like it but I don't think I could control my reactions to it anyways," I say with a frown.

XXXXXXXX

Winter comes early and with full force to Paradise, Ohio. First the wind, then the cold, then the snow. Light dustings to start, then a storm blows through and buries the land so that the scraping sound of snowplows is as consistently heard as the wind itself, leaving a coat of salt over everything. School is canceled for two days. The snow near the roads segues from white to dingy black and eventually melts to standing puddles of slush that refuse to drain. Henri and I spend my time off training, indoors, outdoors. I can now control when my Aevitas comes on and control it for about thirty seconds before the vertigo is too much when I turn it off. I've also got my Telekinesis to the point that I can lift about 20 tons now. We had snuck into the parking lot for the school buses to test my strength out, and thankfully the school didn't have any cameras there to be worried about.

Out in the backyard, the trees stand sentinel around us, frozen branches like figurines of hollow glass, an inch of a fine white powder piled atop each one. The snow is up to our knees aside from the small patch Henri has cleared away. Bernie Kosar sits watching from the back porch. Even he wants nothing to do with the snow. 

“Are you sure about this?” I ask. 

“You need to learn to embrace it,” Henri says. 

“How long will this burn?” I ask. 

“I don’t know.” 

I am wearing a highly combustible suit made mostly of natural fibers soaked in oils, some of which are slow-burning, some of which are not. I want to set it on fire just to be rid of the smells that are making my eyes water. I take a deep breath. 

“Are you ready?” he asks. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” 

“Don’t breathe. You’re not immune to the smoke or fumes and your internal organs will burn. You need to learn to multitask while consumed in flames.”

"Alright let's do this.” 

“If you get in trouble, jump into the snow and start rolling.” 

“I know,” I say. 

“Here we go,” says Henri. 

I take a deep breath just before he touches a match to the suit. Fire sweeps across my body. It feels unnatural for me to keep my eyes open, but I do. I look up. The fire rises eight feet above me. The whole world is shrouded in shades of orange, red, yellow that dance in my line of sight. I can feel the heat, but only slightly as one feels the sun’s rays on a summer day. Nothing more than that. 

“Go!” Henri yells. 

I hold my arms out to my sides, eyes-wide-open, breath held. I feel as though I’m hovering. I enter the deep snow and it begins to sizzle and melt underfoot, a slight steam rising while I walk. I reach my right hand forward and lift a cinder block, which feels heavier than normal. Is it because I’m not breathing? Is it the stress of the fire? 

“Don’t waste time!” Henri yells. 

I hurl the block as hard as I can against a dead tree fifty feet away. The force causes it to smash into a million little pieces, leaving a chunk missing in the wood. Then I raise three tennis balls soaked in gasoline. I juggle them in midair, one over the other. I bring them in towards my body. They catch fire, and still, I juggle them—and while doing so I lift a long, thin broomstick. I close my eyes. My body is warm. I wonder if I’m sweating. If I am, the sweat must be evaporating the second it reaches the skin’s surface. I grit my teeth, open my eyes, thrust my body forward, and direct all of my powers into the stick’s very core. It explodes, splintering into small bits. I don’t let any of them fall to the ground; instead, I keep them suspended, collectively looking like a cloud of dust hovering in midair. I pull them to me and let them burn. The wood pops through the flicker and hum of the flames. I force them back together into a tightly compacted spear of fire that looks as though it has sprung straight from the depths of hell. 

“Perfect!” Henri yells. 

One minute has passed. My lungs begin to burn from the stress of the fire, but my breath is still held. I put everything that I am into the spear and I hurl it so hard that it speeds through the air like a bullet and hits the tree, and hundreds of tiny fires spread throughout the vicinity and extinguish almost immediately. I had hoped the dead wood would catch fire but it does not. I have also dropped the tennis balls. They sizzle in the snow five feet away from me. 

“Forget the balls,” Henri yells. “The tree. Get the tree.” 

The dead wood looks ghastly with its arthritic limbs silhouetted against the world of white beyond it. I close my eyes. I can’t hold my breath much longer. Fueled by the fire and the discomfort of the suit and the tasks that are left undone. I focus on the tree giving it a tug with my mind, I grit my teeth and furrow my brows, and finally, a loud snap rings through the air like a shotgun blast the tree, and most of its roots come tearing through the ground. I catch it in my hands and hold it straight above me. Let it burn, I think. It must be sixty feet long. It finally catches fire and I lift it into the air forty or fifty feet above me and, without touching it, I drive it straight into the ground about ten feet or so as though I’m staking my claim like some old-world swordsman standing atop the hill after winning the war. I use what little concentration I have left and pull the fire around me into a ball in front of me, I then shoot the fireball straight at the tree blasting a hole into it. 

“How’d I do?” I say once I have gained my breath again. 

“Not bad for your first try.” 

“That sucked.” 

“You did well for your first time,” Henri says. “You can’t expect everything to come easily.” 

I nod knowing that I could do better. 

XXXXXXXX

I wake in the middle of the night two days later, 2:57 on the clock. I can hear Henri working at the kitchen table. I crawl out of bed and walk out of the room. He is hunched over a document, wearing bifocals and holding some sort of stamp with a pair of tweezers. He looks up at me. 

“What are you doing?” I ask. 

“Creating forms for you.” 

“For what?” 

“I got to thinking and it would be a bit easier to have an ID for you and a couple premade identities in case something happens to me or we don't have the equipment."

I pick up a birth certificate that he has already finished. The name written is James Hughes. The date of birth would make me a year older. I’d be seventeen, then I bend over and look at the one he is in the process of creating. The name listed is Jobie Frey, age eighteen, a legal adult. 

“Why didn’t we ever think to do this before?” I ask. 

“We never had reason to.” 

Papers of different shapes and sizes and densities are scattered across the table, a large printer off to the side. Bottles of ink, rubber stamps, notary stamps, metal plate-looking things, various tools that look as though they belong in a dentist’s office. The process of document creation has always remained foreign to me. 

“Are we going to change my age now?” 

Henri shakes his head. 

“It’s too late to change your age in Paradise. These are mostly for the future. Who knows what will happen that will give you a reason to use them.” 

The thought of moving in the future makes me nauseous. I would rather stay sixteen and here with him forever, but I know we have a lot to do and that we can't stay here forever.

We spend the next couple of weeks doing nothing but training, I get my Aevitas up to a decent level, I have so far only been able to keep it running for about forty-five seconds and I can't do anything else with it. It seems like it will just be a last-minute resort until I can get a lot more training in.

XXXXXXXX

Sarah returns from Colorado a week before Christmas. I haven’t seen her in eight days. It feels as though it’s been a month. The van drops all the girls off at the school and one of her friends drives her straight to my house without first taking her home. When I hear the tires come up the drive I meet her with a hug and a kiss and I lift her off the ground and twirl her in the air. She has just been in a plane and a car for ten hours and she is wearing sweatpants and no makeup with her hair pulled into a ponytail and yet she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen and I don’t want to let go of her. We stare into each other’s eyes beneath the moonlight and all either of us can do is smile. 

“Did you miss me?” she asks. 

“Every second of every day.” 

She kisses the tip of my nose. 

“I missed you, too.” 

“So do the animals have a shelter again?” I ask. 

“Oh, John, it was amazing! I wish you could have been there. There were probably thirty people helping out at all times, around the clock. The building went up so fast and it’s so much nicer than it was before. We built this cat tree in one of the corners, and I swear the whole time we were there, cats were playing on it.” 

I smile. “It sounds great. I wish I could have been there, too.” 

I take her bag and we walk into the house together. 

“Where’s Henri?” she asks. 

“Grocery shopping. He left about ten minutes ago.” 

She walks through the living room and drops her coat onto the back of a chair on her way into my bedroom. She sits on the edge of my bed and kicks her shoes off. 

“What should we do?” she asks. 

I stand there watching her. She is wearing a red hooded sweatshirt with a zipper down the front. It is only halfway zipped. She smiles and looks at me through the tops of her eyes.

“Come here,” she says and holds her hand out to me. 

I walk to her and she takes my hand in hers. She looks up at me and squints her eyes from the light shining overhead. I snap my fingers with my free hand and the light turns off. 

“How’d you do that?” 

“Magic,” I say. 

I sit beside her. She tucks a few loose strands of hair behind her ear, then leans over and kisses me on the cheek. Then she cups my chin and pulls my head to hers and kisses me again, softly, delicately. My whole body tingles in response. She pulls away, her hand still on my cheek. She traces my brow with her thumb. 

“I really did miss you,” she says. 

“Me, too.” 

A silence passes between us. Sarah bites her lower lip. 

“I couldn’t wait to get here,” she says. “The whole time I was in Colorado, you were all I could think of. Even when playing with the animals, I was wishing you were there with me playing with them, too. And then when we finally left this morning, the entire trip was hell even though every mile we traveled was another mile I was closer to you.” 

She smiles, mostly with her eyes, her lips a thin upturned crescent that keeps her teeth hidden. She kisses me again, a kiss that starts as slow and lingering and goes from there. Both of us are sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand on the side of my face, mine on the small of her back. I can feel the tight contours beneath the tips of my fingers, can taste the berry gloss on her lips. I pull her to me. I feel as though I can’t get close enough to her despite our bodies being pressed tightly together. My hand running up her back, the smooth porcelain feel of her skin. Her hands through my hair, both of us breathing heavily. We fall back on the bed, on our sides. Our eyes are closed. I keep opening mine to see her. The room is dark aside from the moonlight entering through the windows. She catches me watching her and we stop kissing. She puts her forehead to mine and stares at me. She places her hand on the back of my neck and pulls me to her and all at once we’re kissing again. Entangled. Meshed. Our arms tightly around the other. My mind is clear of every plague that normally visits and every thought of other planets, my mind free of the hunt and pursuit by the Mogadorians. Sarah and I on the bed kissing each other, falling into each other. Nothing else in the world matters. And then the door opens in the living room. We both jump up. 

“Henri’s home,” I say. 

We stand and quickly brush the wrinkles from our clothes, smiling, a secret shared between us that makes us giggle as we walk out of the bedroom holding hands. Henri is setting a bag of groceries on the kitchen table. 

“Hi, Henri,” Sarah says. 

He smiles at her. She lets go of my hand and walks over and hugs him and they start talking about her trip to Colorado. I walk outside to get the rest of the groceries. I breathe in the cold air, try to shake my limbs free of the tension of what just happened, and the disappointment of Henri coming home when he did. I’m still breathing heavily as I grab the rest of the groceries and carry them into the house. Sarah is telling Henri about some of the cats that were at the shelter. 

“And you didn’t bring one of them back for us?” 

“Now Henri, you know I would have happily brought you one if you had told me,” Sarah says, her arms folded across her chest with her hip cocked to the side. 

He smiles at her. “I know you would’ve.” 

Henri puts the groceries away and Sarah and I head out into the frigid air to go for a walk before her mom arrives to take her home. Bernie Kosar comes with us. He takes the lead and runs ahead. Sarah and I hold hands, walking through the yard, the temperature slightly above freezing. The snow melting, the ground wet and muddy. Bernie Kosar disappears for a time into the woods and then comes running back out. His bottom half is filthy. 

“What time is your mom coming?” I ask. 

She looks at her watch. “Twenty minutes.” 

I nod. “I’m so happy you’re back.” 

“Me too.” 

We go to the edge of the woods but it is too dark for us to enter. We instead walk along the perimeter of the yard, hand in hand, occasionally stopping to kiss with the moon and stars as witnesses. Neither of us talks about what just happened, but it’s obvious that it is on both of our minds. When we make the first lap Sarah’s mother pulls into the drive. She’s ten minutes early. Sarah runs up and hugs her. I walk inside and grab Sarah’s bag. After we say good-bye, I walk to the road and watch their taillights recede in the distance. I stand outside for a while and then Bernie Kosar and I go back into the house. Henri is halfway through making dinner. I give the dog a bath. When I’m finished dinner is ready. 

We sit at the table and eat, not a word passing between us. I can’t stop thinking of her. I stare blankly into my plate. I’m not hungry but I try to force the food down anyhow. I manage a few bites, and then I push the plate out in front of me and I sit there in silence. 

“So are you going to tell me?” Henri asks. 

“Tell you what?” 

“What’s on your mind.” 

I shrug. “I don’t know.” He nods, goes back to eating. 

I close my eyes. I can still smell Sarah on the collar of my shirt, can still feel her hand on my cheek. Her lips to mine, the texture of her hair when I ran my hand through it. All I can think about is what she must be doing, and how I wish she were still here. 

“Do you think it’s possible for us to be loved by the humans the same way that we are by the Loric?” I ask. 

“I think they can love us the way they love each other, especially if they don’t know what we are, but I don’t think it’s possible to love a human the way you would love a Loric,” he says. 

“Why?” 

“Because deep down we’re different from them. And we love differently. While it may closely resemble the way we love, for us it's a very instinctual thing. You may have strong feelings for Sarah, but they aren’t what you would feel for a Loric girl.” 

“There aren’t many Loric girls available for me.” 

“Even more reason to be careful with Sarah. At some point, if we last long enough, we will need to regenerate our race and repopulate our planet. Obviously, you’re a long way from having to worry about that, but I wouldn’t count on Sarah being your partner.” 

“What happens if we try to have children with humans?” 

“It’s happened many times before. Usually, it results in an exceptional and gifted human. Some of the greatest figures in Earth’s history were actually the product of humans and the Loric, including Buddha, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. Many of the ancient Greek gods, who most people believe were mythological, were actually the children of the humans and Loric, mainly because it was much more common than for us to be on this planet and we were helping them develop civilizations. Aphrodite, Apollo, Hermes, and Zeus were all real, and had one Loric parent.” 

“So it is possible.” 

“It was possible. In our current situation, it’s reckless and impractical. In fact, though I don’t know her number, or have any idea where she is, one of the children who came to Earth with us was the daughter of your parents’ best friends. They used to say that it was fate that the two of you would end up together. They may well have been right.” 

“So what do I do?” 

“Enjoy your time with Sarah, but don’t get too attached to her, and don’t let her get too attached to you.” 

“Really, that is all you have to say don't get to attached?” 

“Trust me, John. If you never believe another word I say, then believe that.” 

“I believe all the words you say even if I don’t want to.” 

Henri winks at me. “Good,” he says. 

Afterwards I go into my room and call Sarah. I think about what Henri said to me before I do it, but I can’t help myself. I am attached to her. We talk for two hours. It is midnight when the call ends. Then I lie in bed smiling through the darkness.


	10. Chapter 10

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

A.N. Sorry all, I got sick and kinda lost some inspiration for a bit. I have still done a couple of chapters and I plan on getting them out to you guys soon.

Chapter Ten-

The day has grown dark. The warm night carries a soft wind and the sky is scattered with intermittent flashes of light, clouds turning to brilliant colors of blue and red and green. Fireworks at first. Fireworks that segue to something else, louder, more menacing, the oohs and aahs turning to shrieks and screams. A chaos erupts. People running, children crying. Me, standing in the middle of it all, watching without the benefit of being able to do anything to help. The soldiers and the beasts pour onto the scene from all directions as I have seen before, the continuous fall of bombs so loud that it hurts the ears, the reverberations felt in the pit of my stomach. So deafening it makes my teeth ache. Then the Loric charge back with such intensity, with such courage, that it makes me proud to be among them, to be one of them.

Then I am gone, sweeping through the air at a rate that causes the world beneath to pass in a blur so that I can't focus on any one thing. When I stop I am standing on the tarmac of an airfield. A silver airship is fifteen feet away and forty or so people stand at the ramp leading up to its entrance. Two people have already entered, standing in the doorway with their eyes on the sky, a very young girl and a woman Henri's age. And then I see myself, four years old, crying, shoulders slumped. A much younger version of Henri just behind me. He, too, is watching the sky. On bended knee in front of me is my grandmother, gripping me by the shoulders. My grandfather stands behind her, his face set hard, distracted, the lenses of his glasses gathering the light from the sky.

"Come back to us, you hear? Come back to us," my grandmother says, finishing speaking.

I wish I could have heard the words that came before them. Up until now, I have never remembered anything that was spoken to me that night. But now I have something. My four-year-old self doesn't respond. My four-year-old self is too scared. He doesn't understand what is happening, why there is urgency and fear in the eyes of everyone around him. My grandmother pulls me to her and then she lets go. She stands and turns her back to keep me from seeing her cry. My four-year-old self knows that she is crying, but he doesn't know why. Next is my grandfather, who is covered in sweat, grime, and blood. He has clearly been fighting, and his face is twisted as though he is straining, ready to fight more, ready to go and do all he can in the struggle to survive. He drops to a knee as my grandmother did before him. For the first time, I look around. Twisted heaps of metal, chunks of concrete, large holes in the ground where the bombs have fallen. Scattered fires, shattered glass, dirt, splintered trees. And in the middle of it all a single airship, unharmed, the one that we are boarding.

"We gotta go!" somebody yells out. A man, dark hair and eyes. I don't know who he is. Henri looks at him and nods. The children walk up the ramp. My grandfather fixes me with a hard stare. He opens his mouth to speak. But before the words come I am again swept away, hurled up through the air, the world below again passing in a blur. I try to make it out, but I am moving too fast. The only discernible sights are the bombs, continually falling, large displays of fire of all colors that sweep through the night sky, and the perpetual explosions that follow.

Then I stop again.

I am inside of a large, open building that I have never seen before. It is silent. The ceiling is domed. The floor is one great slab of concrete the size of a football field. There are no windows, but the sounds of the bombs still penetrate, echoing off the walls around me. Standing in the very middle of the building, tall and proud, alone, is a white rocket that extends all the way to the apex of the ceiling.

Then a door slams open in the far corner. My head snaps around to it. Two men enter, frantic, talking quickly and loudly. All at once, a herd of Chimæra rushes in behind the men. Fifteen, give or take, continually changing shape. Some flying, some running, on two legs, then on four. Bringing up the rear, a third man follows and the door is shut. The first man reaches the spacecraft, opens a sort of hatch on the ship's bottom, and begins ushering the Chimæra in.

"Go! Go! Up and in, up and in," he yells.

The Chimæra go, all of them changing their shapes in order to do so. Then the last one enters and one of the men pulls himself in. The other two begin throwing bags and boxes up to him. It takes them a good ten minutes to get everything on board. Then all three scatter around the rocket, preparing it. The men are sweating, moving frantically until everything is ready. Just before the three of them climb inside the rocket, someone runs up with a bundle that looks like a swaddled child, though I can't see well enough to tell. They take whatever it is and go inside. Then the door snaps shut behind them and is sealed. Minutes pass. The bombs must be just outside the walls now. And then from nowhere an explosion occurs inside the building and I see the beginnings of fire shoot from the bottom of the rocket, a fire that quickly grows, a fire that consumes everything inside the building. A fire that consumes even me.

My eyes snap open. I am back home, in Ohio, lying in bed. The room is dark, but I can sense that I am not alone. A figure moves, a shadow thrown across the bed. I tense myself to it, ready to snap my lights on, ready to hurl it against the wall.

"You were talking," Henri says. "In your sleep just now, you were talking."

I turn on my lights. He is standing beside the bed, wearing pajama pants and a white T-shirt. His hair is tousled; his eyes are red with sleep.

"What was I saying?"

"You said 'Up and in, up and in.' What was happening?"

"I was just on Lorien."

"In a dream?"

"I don't think so. I was there, just like before."

"What did you see?"

I scoot up the bed so my back rests against the wall.

"The Chimæra," I say.

"What Chimæra?"

"In the spaceship, I saw take off. The old one, at the museum. In the rocket that left after ours. I watched Chimæra being loaded into it. Not many. Fifteen, maybe. With three other Loric. I don't think they were Garde. And something else. A bundle. It looked like a baby, but I couldn't tell."

"Why don't you think they were Garde?"

"They loaded the rocket with supplies, fifty or so boxes, and duffel bags. They didn't use telekinesis."

"Into the rocket inside the museum?"

"I think it was the museum. I was inside a large, domed building with nothing inside of it but a rocket. I can only assume it was the museum."

Henri nods. "If they worked at the museum then they would have been Cêpan."

"Whatever happened to Hadley?" I ask, remembering back to the vision I had a few weeks ago, the vision of playing in the yard of my elders' home when I was lifted in the air by the man wearing a silver and blue suit.

Henri smiles. "You remember Hadley?"

I nod. "I've seen him the way that I've seen everything else."

"He came with us on our trip to earth."

"What do you mean he came with us?"

"Hadley was on the ship and has been with us every single day that we've been on this planet."

"What? What do you mean, I think I would have seen a shapeshifting animal with us."

"Hadley come on out," Henri says looking behind him.

And there is BK watching us from the door frame.

"Bernie Kosar here has been watching over you your entire life, and he happened to be with us that day on Lorien so we brought him along with us. He was a gecko back in Florida, and so many other animals before that." Henri says while looking me dead on. "I didn't want to keep it from you but I had at the time thought it best that he stay in the shadows watching over you."

I am stunned and I do nothing other than look at Hadley while this all sinks in.

'Is that true BK? Are you really Hadley?" I say to him with my animal telepathy legacy Anima.

'Yes John, I have always been with you watching over you and giving you comfort when you needed it.'

I don't know what to say after this huge revelation on top of the vision I just had. I need to organize my thoughts, after a minute or so I redirect the conversation back to the visions.

"So what do you think the visions mean? Why were they loading Chimæra into a rocket? What was a baby doing with them, or was it even a baby? Where did they go? What purpose could they possibly have had?"

Henri thinks about it a moment. He shifts the weight of his body to his right leg.

"Probably the same purpose we had. Think about it, John. How else could animals repopulate Lorien? They too would have to go to some sort of sanctuary. Everything was wiped out. Not just the people, but also the animals, and all plant life. Maybe the bundle was just another animal. A fragile one, or maybe a young one."

"Well, where would they go? What other sanctuary exists besides Earth?"

"I think they went to one of the space stations. A rocket with Loric fuel would have been able to make it that far. Maybe they thought the invasion would be short-lived, and they thought they could wait it out. I mean, they would have been able to live on the space station for as long as their supplies lasted."

"There are space stations close to Lorien?"

"Yes, two of them. Well, there were two of them. I know for sure the larger of the two was destroyed at the same time as the invasion. We lost contact with it less than two minutes after the first bomb fell."

"Why didn't you mention that before, when I first told you about the rocket?"

"I had assumed that it was empty, that it went up in the air as a decoy. And I think that if one space station was destroyed, then the other was as well. Their trip, unfortunately, was probably done in vain, whatever their goal was."

"But what if they came back when their supplies ran out? Do you think they could survive on Lorien?" I ask in desperation.

I already know the answer, already know what Henri will say, but I ask anyway in order to hold on to some sort of hope that we aren't alone in all this. That maybe, somewhere far away, there are others like us, waiting, monitoring the planet so that they, too, might one day return and we won't be alone when we go back.

"No. There is no water there now. Nothing but a barren wasteland. And nothing can survive without water."

I sigh and scoot back down into the bed. I drop my head onto the pillow. What's the point in arguing? Henri is right and I know it. I saw it for myself. Lorien is nothing more than wasteland, a dump. The planet still lives but on the surface there is nothing. No water. No plants. No life. Nothing but dirt and rocks and the rubble of the civilization that once existed.

"Did you see anything else?" Henri asks.

"I saw us on the day we left. All of us at the airship right before we took off."

"It was a sad day."

I nod. Henri crosses his arms and gazes out the window, lost in thought. I take a deep breath. "Where was your family during it all?" I ask.

My lights have been off for a good two or three minutes, but I can see the whites of Henri's eyes staring back at me.

"Not with me, not on that day," he says.

We are both silent for a time and then Henri shifts his weight.

"Well, I better get back to bed," he says, bringing an end to the conversation. "Get some sleep."

After he leaves I lie there thinking of the animals, of the rocket, of Henri's family, and how I'm sure he never got the chance to say good-bye to them. I know I won't be able to go back to sleep. I never can when the images visit me when I feel Henri's sadness. It must be a thought constantly on his mind, as it would be for anyone who left under the same circumstances, leaving the only home you've ever known, all the while knowing you will never see the people you love again.

I grab my cell phone and text Sarah. I always text her when I can't sleep, or she texts me if it's the other way around. Then we'll talk for as long as it takes to become tired. She calls me twenty seconds after I hit the send button.

"Hey, you," I answer.

"You can't sleep?"

"No."

"What's the matter?" she asks. She yawns on the other end of the line.

"Was just missing you is all. Been lying in bed staring at the ceiling for like an hour now."

"You're silly. You saw me like six hours ago."

"I wish you were still here," I say. She moans. I can hear her smile through the darkness. I roll to my side and hold the phone between my ear and the pillow.

"Well, I wish I was still there, too."

We talk for twenty minutes. The last half of the call is both of us just lying there listening to the other breathe. I feel better after having talked to Sarah, but I find it even harder to fall back asleep.

XXXXXXXX

For once, since we arrived in Ohio, things seem to slow for a time. School ends quietly and for winter break we have eleven days off. Sam and his mother spend most of it visiting his aunt in Illinois. Sarah stays home. We spend Christmas together. We kiss when the ball drops at midnight on New Year's Eve. Despite the snow and the cold, or maybe even in retaliation against it, we go for long walks through the woods behind my house, holding hands, kissing, breathing in the chilly air beneath the low gray skies of winter. We spend more and more time together. Not a day passes during that whole break that we don't see each other at least once.

We walk hand in hand beneath an umbrella of white from the snow piled atop the tree branches overhead. She has her camera with her and occasionally stops to take pictures. Most of the snow on the ground lies undisturbed aside from the tracks we have made on the walk out. We follow them back now, Bernie Kosar I mean Hadley in the lead, darting in and out of the brambles, chasing rabbits into small groves and thickets of a thorny bush, chasing squirrels up trees. It's still hard to believe that BK is actually Hadley from back on Lorien. Sarah wears a pair of black earmuffs. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose are red with the cold, making her eyes look bluer. I stare at her.

"What?" she asks, smiling.

"Just admiring the view."

She rolls her eyes at me. For the most part, the woods are dense aside from sporadic clearings we continually stumble upon. I'm not sure how far in any one direction the woods extend, but in all of our walks, we have yet to reach their end.

"I bet it's beautiful here in the summer," Sarah says. "We can probably picnic in the clearings."

An ache forms in my chest. Summer is still five months away and if Henri and I are here in May, we will have made it seven months in Ohio. That is very nearly one the longest we have ever stayed in one place.

"Yeah," I agree.

Sarah looks at me. "What?"

I look at her questioningly. "What do you mean, 'what?'"

"That wasn't very convincing," she says.

A murder of crows fly by overhead, squawking noisily.

"I just wish it was summer now."

"Me too. I can't believe we have to go back to school tomorrow."

"Ugh, don't remind me."

We enter another clearing, larger than the others, an almost perfect circle a hundred feet in diameter. Sarah lets go of my hand, runs into the middle of it, and drops into the snow, laughing. She rolls to her back and begins making a snow angel. I drop beside her and do the same. The tips of our fingers just barely touch while we make the wings. We get up.

"It's like we're holding wings," she says.

"Is that possible?" I ask.

"I mean, how would we fly if we're holding wings?"

"Of course it's possible. Angels can do anything."

Then she turns and nuzzles into me. Her cold face against my neck makes me squirm away from her.

"Ahh! Your face is like ice."

She laughs. "Come warm me up."

I take her in my arms and kiss her beneath the open sky, the trees surrounding us. There are no sounds save the birds and the occasional pack of snow falling from the nearby branches. Two cold faces pressed tightly together. Bernie Kosar comes trotting up, out of breath, tongue dangling, tail wagging. He barks and sits in the snow staring at us, his head cocked to the side.

"Bernie Kosar! Were you off chasing rabbits?" Sarah asks.

He barks twice and runs over and jumps up on her. He barks again and pushes off and then looks up expectantly. She grabs a stick from the ground, shakes the snow off it, and then hurls it into the trees. He races after it and disappears from sight. He emerges from the trees ten seconds later, but instead of returning to the clearing where he had exited it, he comes from the opposite side. Sarah and I both spin around to watch him.

"How'd he do that?" she asks.

"He's a very special dog," I say.

"Did you hear that, Bernie Kosar? He just called you special!"

'That's rude John,' BK calls out to my mind.

I laugh as he walks up and drops the stick at her feet. We walk towards home, holding hands, the day nearing dusk. Bernie Kosar trots beside us the whole way out, his head on a swivel as though ushering us along, keeping us safe from what may or may not lurk in the outer dark beyond our line of sight.

XXXXXXXX

Five newspapers are stacked on the kitchen table, Henri at his computer, the overhead light on.

"Anything?" I ask out of habit, nothing more.

There hasn't been a promising story in months, which is a good thing, but I can't help but always hope for something every time I ask.

"Actually, yes, I think so."

I perk up, then walk around the table and look over Henri's shoulder at the computer screen.

"What is it?"

"There was an earthquake in Argentina yesterday evening. A sixteen-year-old girl pulled an elderly man free from a pile of rubble in a tiny town near the coast."

"Number Nine?"

"Well, I certainly think she's one of us. Whether she's Number Nine or not remains to be seen."

"Why? There's nothing really extraordinary about pulling a man from rubble."

"Look," Henri says, and then scrolls to the top of the article. There is a picture of a large slab of concrete at least a foot thick, eight feet long and wide. "This is what she lifted to save him. It must weigh five tons. And look at this," he says, and scrolls back to the bottom of the page. He highlights the very last sentence. It reads: "Sofia García could not be found for comment."

I read the sentence three times. "She couldn't be found," I say.

"Exactly. She didn't decline to comment; she simply couldn't be found."

"It was a tiny town you said right that's probably how they got her name so quickly?"

"It's a small town yes, less than a third the size of Paradise. Most everyone would know her name there."

"She left, didn't she?"

Henri nods. "I think so. Probably before the paper was even published. That's the downfall of small towns; it's impossible to remain unnoticed."

I sigh. "Hard for the Mogadorians to go unnoticed too."

"Precisely."

"Sucks for her," I say, and stand up. "It's hard to find a place to stay at for very long."

I return to my bedroom. I pack my bag with a fresh change of clothes and the books I'll need for the day. Back to school. I'm not looking forward to it, though it'll be nice to see Sam again, whom I haven't seen in nearly two weeks.

"Okay," I say. "I'm off."

"Have a good day. Be safe out there."

"See you this afternoon."

Bernie Kosar rushes out of the house ahead of me. He's a ball of energy this morning. I think he's come to look forward to our morning runs, and the fact that we haven't done one in a week and a half has him chomping at the bit to get back to it. He keeps up with me for most of the run. Once we make it I give him a good pet and scratch behind his ears.

"All right, boy, go home," I say.

He turns and starts trotting back to the house. I take my time in the shower. By the time I finish, other students are beginning to arrive. I walk the hall, stop by my locker, then go to Sam's. I slap him on the back. It startles him, then he flashes a big toothy grin when he sees that it's me.

"I thought I was going to have to whip somebody's ass there for a minute," he says.

"Just me, my friend. How was Illinois?"

"Ugh," he says, and rolls his eyes. "My aunt made me drink tea and watch reruns of Little House on the Prairie nearly every day."

I laugh. "That sounds awful."

"It was, trust me," he says and reaches into his bag.

"This was waiting in the mail when we got back."

He hands me the latest issue of They Walk Among Us. I begin flipping through it.

"There is nothing on the Mogadorians," he says.

I had told him that Henri was honestly interested in the Mogadorian alien rumor.

"Bummer," I say.

Over Sam's shoulder, I see that Sarah is coming our way. Mark James stops her in the middle of the hallway and hands her a few sheets of orange paper. Then she continues on her way.

"Hi, gorgeous," I say when she reaches us.

She stands on her toes to kiss me. Her lips taste like strawberry lip balm.

"Hi, Sam. How are you?"

"Good. How're you?" he asks.

Being in Sarah's presence used to make him uncomfortable but he seems to have made some progress with his confidence over the last couple of months. Now he seems to look her in the eyes and smile, speaking with some measure of confidence.

"Good," she says. "I'm supposed to give you both one of these."

She hands us each one of the orange sheets Mark just gave her. It's a party invitation for this upcoming Saturday night at his house.

"I'm invited?" Sam asks.

Sarah nods. "All three of us are."

"Do you want to go?" I ask.

"Maybe we could give it a shot."

I nod. "You interested, Sam?"

He looks past Sarah and me. I turn to see what he is looking at, or rather who. At a locker across the hall is Emily, the girl who was on the hayride with us, and who Sam has been pining for ever since. When she walks past she sees that Sam is watching her and she smiles politely.

"Emily?" I say to Sam.

"Emily what?" Sam asks, looking back at me.

I look at Sarah. "I think Sam likes Emily Knapp."

"I do not," he says.

"I could ask her to come to the party with us," Sarah says.

"Do you think she would go?" Sam asks.

Sarah looks at me. "Well, maybe I shouldn't invite her since Sam doesn't like her."

Sam smiles. "Okay, fine. I just, I don't know."

"She kept asking why you never called after the hayride. She kind of likes you."

"That is true," I say. "I've heard her say it."

"Why didn't you tell me?" says Sam.

"You never asked."

Sam looks down at the flyer.

"So it's this Saturday?"

"Yes."

He looks up at me. "I say we go."

I shrug. "I'm in."

XXXXXXXX

Henri is waiting for me when the final bell rings. As always, Bernie Kosar is in the passenger seat, and when he sees me, his tail begins wagging a hundred miles an hour. I jump into the truck. Henri puts it into gear and drives away.

"There was a follow-up article on the girl in Argentina," Henri says.

"And?"

"Just a short article saying that she has disappeared. The mayor of the town is offering a modest reward for information on her whereabouts. It sounds like they believe she's been kidnapped."

"Are you worried about the Mogadorians having gotten to her first?"

"If she's Nine, like the note we found indicated, and the Mogadorians were tracking her, it's a good thing that she vanished. And if she's been captured, the Mogadorians can't kill her—they can't even hurt her. That gives us hope. The good thing, aside from the news itself, is that I imagine every Mogadorian on Earth has poured into Argentina."

"Speaking of which, Sam had the latest issue of They Walk Among Us today."

"Was there anything in it?"

"Nope."

"I didn't think there would be. Your levitation trick and beat down must have affected them rather profoundly."

When we arrive home I change clothes and meet Henri in the backyard for our day of training. Working while consumed with fire has become like second nature. I can hold my breath longer, close to four minutes. I have become more adept at molding the fire around me, although my Aevitas has hit a roadblock in progress and I can still use it for a small amount of time, long enough at least to be of some use.

Little by little, the look of worry I saw on Henri's face during the first days back from Athens has melted away. He nods more. He smiles more. On the days it goes really well he gets a crazed look in his eyes and he raises his arms in the air and yells "Yes!" as loudly as he can.

My final/combat legacy has yet to come, though I have already received six others them being my Animal Telepathy, Telekinesis, Super Strength, Lumen, my Dream Precognition that Henri is sure will continue to develop and eventually show me the path to victory in our future struggles and finally, my newest legacy Aevitas which Henri says will take a lot of focus and further training to master. And the major one, whatever it will be shouldn't take much longer to appear. The anticipation of it keeps me up most nights. I want to fight. I hunger for a Mogadorian to saunter into the backyard so that I may finally seek revenge.

XXXXXXXX

It's an easy day. Mostly just me lifting things after Henri sets them on fire and manipulating them while they are suspended in the air. The last twenty minutes pass with Henri throwing objects at me—sometimes I just allow them to fall to the ground after stopping them, other times deflecting them in a way that emulates a boomerang so that they twist in the air and go blazing back towards Henri. At one point a meat tenderizer flies back so fast that Henri dives face-first into the snow to keep from being hit by it. I laugh. Henri does not. Bernie Kosar lies on the ground the whole time watching us, seeming to offer his own encouragement. After we are done I shower, do my homework, and sit at the kitchen table for dinner.

"So there is a party this Saturday that I'm going to go to."

He looks up at me, stops chewing. "Whose party?"

"Mark James's."

Henri looks surprised.

"All that's over," I say before he can object.

"Well, you know best, I suppose. Just remember what's at stake."


	11. Chapter 11

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

Chapter Eleven-

And then the weather warms. Brisk winds, bitter cold, and continuous snow showers are followed by blue skies and fifty-degree temperatures. The snow melts. At first, there are standing puddles in the driveway and the yard, the road wet with the sounds of splashing tires, but after a day all the water drains and evaporates and the cars pass as they do on any other day. A lull in the action, a brief reprieve before old man winter takes up the reins again. I sit on the porch waiting for Sarah, staring up at the night sky full of twinkling stars and a full moon. A thin, knifelike cloud cuts the moon in two and then quickly disappears. I hear the crunch of gravel under tires; then headlights come into view and the car pulls into the driveway. Sarah gets out of the driver's side. She's dressed in dark gray pants flared at the ankles, a navy blue cardigan sweater beneath a beige jacket. Her eyes are accentuated by the blue shirt peeking out where the jacket's zipper ends. Her blond hair falling past her shoulders. She smiles coyly and looks at me, fluttering her eyelashes as she approaches. There are butterflies in my stomach. Almost three months together and yet I still grow nervous when I see her. A nervousness that's hard to imagine time will ever assuage.

"You look gorgeous," I say.

"Well, thank you," she says and bobs a curtsy. "You don't look so bad yourself."

I kiss Sarah on the cheek. Then Henri walks out of the house and waves to Sarah's mom, who is sitting in the passenger seat of the car.

"So you'll call when you're ready to be picked up, right?" Henri asks me.

"Yes," I say.

We walk to the car and Sarah gets behind the wheel. I sit in the back. She's had her learner's permit for a few months now, which means she can drive so long as a licensed driver sits in the passenger seat beside her. Her actual driver's test is on Monday, two days away. She's been anxious about it ever since making the appointment over winter break. She backs out of the driveway and pulls away, eventually flipping the visor down and smiling at me through the mirror. I smile back.

"So how was your day, John?" her mother turns and asks me. We make small talk. She tells me of the trip to the mall that the two of them made earlier in the day, and how Sarah drove. I tell her about playing with Bernie Kosar in the yard, and about the run, we went on after. I don't tell her about the training session that lasted for three hours in the backyard after the run. I don't tell her how I pulled a tree right out of its roots and while still holding it in the air I split it into half, or how Henri threw knives at me that I grabbed out of the air and spinning them around me before throwing all of them into a sandbag fifty feet away. I don't tell her about being lit on fire or that I would slow down time as Henri threw knives at me as I tried to dodge. Another kept secret. Another half-truth that feels like a lie. I would like to tell Sarah. I somehow feel that I'm betraying her by keeping myself hidden, and over the last few weeks, the burden has really begun to weigh on me. But I also know I have no other choice. Not at this point, anyhow.

"So it's this one?" Sarah asks.

"Yes," I say.

She pulls into Sam's driveway. He paces at the end of it, dressed in jeans and a wool sweater. He looks up at us with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights blank stare. There is gel in his hair. I've never seen gel in his hair before. He walks to the side of the car, opens the door, and slides in beside me.

"Hi, Sam," Sarah says, then introduces him to her mom.

Sarah reverses the car out of the driveway and pulls onto the road. Both of Sam's hands are planted firmly on the seat in nervousness. Sarah turns down a road I've never seen before and makes a right turn into a winding driveway. Thirty or so cars are parked along the side of it. At the end of the driveway, surrounded by trees, is a large, two-story house. We can hear the music well before we reach the house.

"Jeez, nice house," Sam says.

"You guys be good in there," Sarah's mom says. "And be safe. Call if you need anything, or if you can't get ahold of your father," she says, looking at me.

"Will do, Mrs. Hart," I say.

We get out of the car and begin walking to the front door. Two dogs run up to us from the side of the house, a golden retriever and a bulldog. Their tails are wagging and they're sniffing spastically at my pants, smelling the scent of Bernie Kosar. The bulldog is carrying a stick in his mouth. I wrestle it away from him and throw it across the yard and both dogs sprint after it.

"Dozer and Abby," Sarah says.

"I take it Dozer is the bulldog?" I ask.

She nods and smiles at me as though in apology. I'm reminded how well she must know this house. I wonder if it's odd for her to be back now, with me.

"This is a horrible idea," Sam says. He looks at me. "I'm only now realizing that."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because only three months ago the guy who lives here filled both our lockers with cow manure and hit me in the back of the head with a meatball during lunch. And now we're here."

"I bet Emily is already here," I say, and nudge him with my elbow.

The door opens into the foyer. The dogs come rushing in past us and disappear into the kitchen, which lies straight ahead. I can see that Abby is now holding the stick. We're met with loud music that we have to yell over to be heard. People are dancing in the living room. There are cans of beer in most of their hands, a few people drinking bottled water or soda. Apparently, Mark's parents are out of town. The whole football team is in the kitchen, half of them wearing their letterman jackets. Mark comes up and hugs Sarah. Then he shakes my hand. He holds my gaze for a second then looks away. He doesn't shake Sam's hand. He doesn't even look his way, maybe Sam was right about this being a bad idea.

"Happy you guys could make it beer is in the kitchen."

Emily is in the corner talking to some other people. Sam looks over at her before turning to Mark and asks where the bathroom is. He points the way.

"I'll be right back," Sam says as he walks away.

Most of the guys are standing around the island in the middle of the kitchen me when Sarah and I enter I look at each of them in turn and then grab a bottle of water from the ice bucket Mark and Sarah beer and opened it for her the way he looks at her makes me realize yet again just how little I trust him but I realize now just how bizarre the whole situation is me being in the house now with Sara is ex-girlfriend I'm happy that Sam is with me.

I reach down and play with the dogs until Sam comes out of the bathroom by then Sara has made a way to the corner of the living room and is talking to Emily Sam tenses beside when he realizes that there is nothing else for us to do but walk up to them and say hello take a deep breath in the kitchen two of the guys have lit a corner of the newspaper on fire for no other reason than to watch it burn

"Make sure you compliment Emily," I say to Sam as we approach. He nods.

"There you guys are," Sarah says. "I thought you had left me all by my lonesome."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I say "Hi, Emily. How are you?

"I'm good," she says, then to Sam, "I like your hair."

Sam just looks at her. I nudge him. He smiles.

"Thank you", he says "You look very nice."

Sarah gives me a knowing look. I shrug and kiss her on the cheek. The music has grown even louder. Sam talks to Emily, somewhat nervously, but she laughs and after a while, he eases a little.

"So are you okay," Sarah asks me.

"Of course. I'm with the prettiest girl at the party. How could things be better?"

"Oh shush," she says and pokes me in the stomach.

XXXXXXXX

The four of us dance for an hour or so. The football players keep drinking. Somebody shows up with a bottle of vodka and not long after that one of them (I don't know which) throws up in the bathroom so that the smell of vomit wafts throughout the whole downstairs. Another one passes out on the living-room sofa and some of the others draw with a marker on his face. People keep filtering in and out of the doorway leading to the basement. I have no idea what is going on down there. I haven't seen Sarah for the past ten minutes. I leave Sam and walk through the living room and the kitchen, then walk up the stairs. White, thick carpet, walls lined with art and family portraits. Some of the bedroom doors are open. Some are closed. I don't see Sarah. I walked back downstairs. Sam is standing sullenly by himself in the corner. I walk over to him.

"Why the long face," I ask.

He shakes his head

"Don't make me wheedle it out of you," I smile Sam doesn't.

"I just got cornered by Alex Davis," He says.

Alex Davis is another of Mark James's brood, a wide receiver for the team. He's a junior, tall and thin. I've never talked to him before, and likewise know little else about him.

"What do you mean 'cornered'?"

"We just talked. He saw that I was talking with Emily. I guess they dated over the summer."

"So what. Why does that bother you?"

He shrugs. "It just sucks, and it bothers me okay?"

"Sam, do you know how long Sarah and Mark dated?"

"For a long time."

"Two years," I say.

"Does it bother you?" he asks.

"Not in the least. Who cares about her past? Besides, look at Alex," I say, and nod to him standing in the kitchen. He is slumped against the kitchen counter, his eyes aflutter, a thin layer of sweat glistening on his forehead. "Do you really think she misses being with that?"

Sam looks at him and shrugs.

"You're a good dude, Sam Goode. Don't get down on yourself."

"I'm not down on myself."

"Well then, don't worry about Emily's past. We don't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it's a regret, maybe it's not. It's merely something that happened. Get over it."

Sam sighs. He's still wrestling with it.

"Go on. She likes you. There's nothing to be scared of," I say.

"I am, though."

"The best way to deal with fear is to confront it. Just walk up to her and kiss her. I bet you that she kisses you back."

Sam looks at me and nods, then goes to the basement, where Emily is hanging out. The two dogs come wrestling into the living room. Tongues dangling. Tails wagging. Dozer drops his chest to the ground and waits for Abby to come near enough and then he jumps at her and she jumps away. I watch them until they disappear up the stairs, playing tug-of-war with a rubber toy. It's a quarter till midnight. A couple is making out on the couch across the room. The football players are still drinking in the kitchen. I'm starting to get sleepy. I still can't find Sarah.

Just then one of the boys comes running up the stairs a wide frantic look in his eyes. He comes rushing into the kitchen and to the kitchen sink, he turns on the water as high as it can go and begins throwing open the cupboard doors.

"There's a fire downstairs!" he says to the other guys nearby at the island in the kitchen.

They begin filling pots and pans and anything that they can get their hands on and start rushing down the stairs to the basement.

Both Emily and Sam come running up the stairs just before I reach it. Sam looks shaken.

"What's happened?" I say.

The house is on fire and I think that we might have started it. We, uh may have a candle into a curtain."

Sam and Emily both look disheveled and have clearly been making out. I make a note to congratulate him later.

"Have you seen Sarah?" I ask Emily.

She shakes her head.

More guys come rushing up the stairs, Mark James with them. There is fear in his eyes. For the first time, I smell smoke. I look at Sam.

"Go outside," I say.

He nods and takes Emily's hand and they leave together. Some of the others follow, but some stay where they are, watching with drunken curiosity. A few people stand around stupidly patting football players on the back as they rush up and down the stairs, cheering them on as though it's all a joke.

I go downstairs to see how bad the flames are and if they need any help battling them. The flames are larger than I had imagined. Half the basement is consumed by the flames. The guys that are down here with their pots and pans filled with water are not even making a dent in the ever-growing flames. It is a futile effort. I dash back upstairs to find Mark coming my way to get downstairs. I stop him in his tracks as he reaches me. His eyes are swimming with booze but I can see the fear easily and that he is desperate to do something.

"Forget about it," I say. "It's too big. We have to get everyone out now while we still can."

He looks past me at the stairs that I am blocking him from reaching, He knows that what I have said is true. The tough-guy front is gone. There is no more pretending.

"Mark!" I yell

He nods and drops the pot and we go to the living room.

"Everybody out! Now!" I yell when we reach the center of the room.

Some of the drunker ones don't move. Some of them are even laughing. One person says, "Where's the marshmallows?" Mark slaps him across the face.

"Get out!" he screams.

I take the cordless phone from off the walls and hand it over to Mark.

"Dial 911," I yell over the loud voices and music that still blares. The floor is getting warm. Smoke begins to billow up from beneath us. Only then do people start to take us seriously. I start pushing and even carrying some of them out the door.

I rush back inside and bound up the stairs to the second floor taking four steps in a single leap, I come to the first door and I kick it off its hinges. One couple is making out on a bed. I yell at them both to get out. They are not paying attention to me at all, too engrossed in another, and obviously inebriated from all the alcohol. I run up to them pulling them apart before dragging them out of the room.

I sprint back down the stairs basically dragging them along, we get out into the dark, cold night. People are standing around staring back at the building. Some of them I can tell are excited to see the house burn, some of them are laughing. I can't see Sarah anywhere. I can see Sam though standing towards the back of the crowd which must number a hundred people. I run to him.

"Have you seen Sarah?" I ask.

"No," he says.

I look back at the house. People are running around the exterior of the building for none dare try and enter it as the flames continue to grow. The basement windows glow red, flames licking against the panes of glass. One of them is open. Black smoke pours out of it and floats high into the air. I weave through the crowd. Just then an explosion rattles the house and a couple of people in the crowd scream in surprise or shout in joy, acting as if this is all just a show. The flames have arrived on the first floor, and they are moving fast. Mark James stands at the front of the crowd, unable to divert his gaze away from it. His face is illuminated by the orange glow. There are tears in his eyes, a look of despair, the same look that I saw in the eyes of the Loric on the day of the invasion. What an odd thing it must be to watch everything that you've ever known be destroyed right in front of your eyes. The fire spreads with hostility, with disregard. All Mark can do is watch. Flames are beginning to rise up past the first-floor windows. We can feel the heat on our faces from where we stand about fifty feet away.

"Where's Sarah!?" I nearly shout in his ear.

He doesn't even register me next to him. I grab him by the shoulders and turn him to face me shaking him as I do so. He looks at me with a blankness in his eyes that suggests he still doesn't quite believe what is happening.

"Where is Sarah!?" I yell again.

"I don't know," he says.

I start to weave through the crowd looking for her, even with my height towering over most of the people present I can't see Sarah anywhere, I am getting more and more frantic as my search yields no results. Everyone is watching the blaze. The vinyl siding has begun to bubble and melt. The curtains in the window have all burned away. The front door stands open, smoke pouring out of the top of it like an upside-down waterfall. We can see all the way into the kitchen, which is an inferno. On the left side of the house, the fire has reached the second floor. And that's when we all hear it.

A long terrible scream. And dogs barking. My heart drops. Every person there strains to listen while hoping like hell we didn't hear what we all know we did. And then it comes again. Unmistakable. It comes in a torrent and this time it doesn't let up. Gasps filter throughout the crowd.

"Oh no," Emily says. "Oh God no, please no."

Nobody speaks. All eyes are wide-open, staring up in shock. Sarah and the dogs must be somewhere in the back. I close my eyes and lower my head thinking that if only I had spent just a minute longer looking or if only I didn't have to drag the couple out of the house, that I may have been able to find her and get her out in time. The smoke invades my lungs, it's the only thing I can smell right now and it fills me with rage. "Just remember what is at stake," Henri had warned me. I know damn well what's at stake, but still his voice echoes. My life, and now Sarah's life. There is another scream. Terrified. Severe.

"Sam," I say so that only he can hear me, "I am going in." He looks at me with shock in his eyes.

"John it would be suicide for you to go in there."

"If I don't go in there and save her then she will die Sam," I say to him, with new resolve.

I begin moving through the crowd trying to make my way around the back of the building I can hear Sam calling my name but I just ignore it, I don't have the time to explain to him that I actually am an alien and that I lied to him and kept this form him. That I have superpowers that make me immune to fire and that I am the only chance of her survival.

When I finally reach the back of the house I make a mad dash and then sprint inside the kitchen. It is completely submerged in the fire. I can hear Sarah and the dogs. They are closer now. Anger. Determination. Hope and fear.

I let them in, I feel them all as the crackle and hum of the flames vibrate with sound like a melody. The fire catches my clothes on fire. There is no end to the blaze. I move through the house going towards the stairs that are in the living room, half of the staircase has burned away. With no time to waste, I take a running start and leap up the stairs clearing the stairway in one go. The fire has finally spread to the other side of the house, nearly everything is on fire. I can hear Sarah screaming and crying in fear, she's scared and she is going to die if I don't hurry to her. Time is short.

She and the dogs are to my right further down the hallway. I can hear them in the last room at the end of the hallway. Sarah is screaming, "HELP!" The dogs are whining and crying. I smash my way through the door with my shoulder, not wanting to test the door and waste any more time. The door goes flying off of its hinges into the room. All three of them are huddled together as tightly as they can in the far corner of the room. Sarah sees me and yells my name and starts to stand. I finally release the breath that I have been holding both because of the smoke not yet clogging the room but also because of the relief of seeing her still alive and well. I motion for her stay where she is as I take another deep breath in, as I start to make my way towards her a huge flaming support beam falls between us. I raise my hand and send the beam upwards, crashing through what remains of the roof. Sarah seems confused by what she has just seen. I leap towards her, covering twenty feet in a single bound, moving straight through the flames without them affecting me at all. The dogs are at her feet. I push the bulldog into Sarah's arms and pick up the retriever. With my other arm, I help her stand.

"You came," she says.

"No one, and nothing, will ever hurt you as long as I am alive," I say back to her.

Another huge beam falls and takes out part of the floor, landing in the kitchen below us. We need to get out of the back of the house so no one sees me or sees what I think I'm going to need to do. I hold Sarah tight against my side and the dog against my chest. We take two steps, then leap over the flaming chasm created by the falling debris. As we start to move down the hall, a huge explosion below takes out most of the hallway, where it was is now just a wall and a window, and are quickly being consumed by the flames. Our only chance is through the window. Sarah is screaming again clutching my arm, and I can feel the dog's claws digging into my chest. I focus on the window and with my TK I blow it open leaving a large hole in its place. I look at Sarah, pulling her securely against my side.

"Hold on tight," I say.

I take three steps and dive forward. The flames swallow us whole but we fly through the air like a bullet, heading straight towards the opening. I'm worried we're not going to fit through it. We barely clear it, and I feel the edge of the hole in the wall scrape my arms and legs as we pass through. I hold Sarah and the dog as best as I can, and twist my body in the air so that I'll land on my back and everyone else will land on top of me. We hit the ground with a thud. Dozer goes rolling. Abby yelps. I hear the breath go out of Sarah. We're about thirty feet behind the house. I feel a cut on the top of my head from the broken pieces of wood from the broken window frame. Dozer is the first one up. He seems fine. Abby is a little slower. She limps on her front paw, but I don't think it is anything serious. I lie on my back and hold Sarah. She is starting to cry. I can smell her singed hair. Blood drips down the side of my face and gathers in my ear.

I sit in the grass trying to catch my breath. Sarah is in my arms. The bottom of my shoes have melted. My shirt has completely burned away, and so have most of my jeans. Small cuts traverse the length of both my arms. But I am not burned at all, our training with my Lumen showing results. Dozer walks over and licks my hand. I pet him as I hear him say thank you in my mind.

"You're a good boy," I say between Sarah's sobs. "Go on. Get your sister and go back up front."

There are sirens in the distance that should be here within the next minute or two. The woods are about a hundred yards from the back of the house. Both dogs sit watching me. I nod to the front of the house and send a telekinetic message to them telling them to go on. They walk away as I pick Sarah up in my arms and begin walking into the woods, she cries into my shoulder as we move inside. Just as we enter them I hear the whole crowd erupt in cheers. Dozer and Abby must have been seen.

The woods are dense. The full moon still shines but there is little light coming from it. I turn my hands on so we can see. I start to shiver. Panic sweeps through me. How will I explain this to Henri? I'm wearing what now looks like singed cutoffs. My head is bleeding. So is my back, along with various cuts on my arms and legs. With Sarah in my arms, I know that she must know what I can do and what I am capable of, or at least some of it. I'm going to have to explain everything to her. I'll have to tell Henri that she knows. We have already had too many close calls with the Mogs and with my identity being revealed as is. He'll say that someone will slip up and say something. He will insist that we leave immediately.

I set Sarah down. She's stopped crying. She looks at me, confused, scared, bewildered. I know I need to get some clothes and get back to the party so that people aren't suspicious. I need to get Sarah back so that people don't think she's dead.

"You're okay to walk?" I say.

"I think so."

"Follow me."

"Where are we going?"

"I need to get some clothes. Hopefully, one of the football players has a change of clothes for after practice I can take."

We start walking through the woods. We start looking into the cars lining the block to see if I can spot a gym bag or something.

"What just happened, John? What is happening?"

"You were in a fire, and I got you out of it."

"What you did isn't possible."

"It is for me."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I look at her. I had hoped to never tell her what I am about to. Even though I knew it probably wasn't realistic, I had hoped to stay hidden in Paradise. Henri has always said never to get too close to anyone. Because if you do, at some point they're going to notice that you're different, and that will require an explanation. And that means we have to leave. My heart is pounding, my hands are shaking, but not because I'm cold. If I have any hope of staying, or of getting away with what I did tonight, I have to tell her.

"I am not who you think I am," I say.

"Who are you?"

"I am Number Four."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Sarah, it's going to sound stupid and crazy, but what I'm about to say is the truth. You have to believe me."

She places her hand on the side of my face. "If you say it's the truth, then I'll believe you."

"It is."

"Then tell me."

"I'm an alien. I am the fourth of nine kids that were sent to Earth after our planet was destroyed. I have powers, powers unlike any human, powers that allow me to do things like what I did in the house. And there are other aliens here on Earth who are hunting me, the ones who attacked my planet, and if they find me they will kill me."

I expect her to slap me, or laugh at me, or scream, or turn and run away from me. She stops and looks at me. Looks right into my eyes.

"You're telling me the truth," she says.

"Yes, I am." I look into her eyes, willing her to believe me. She stares searchingly at me for a long moment, and then nods.

"Thank you for saving my life. I don't care what you are or where you are from. To me you're John, the boy I love."

"What?"

"I love you, John and you saved my life, and that's all that is important."

"I love you too. And I always will."

I wrap my arms around her and kiss her. After a minute or so, she pulls away.

"Let's go find you some clothes and get back so people know that we're okay."

Sarah finds a change of clothes in the fourth car we check. They are close enough to what I was wearing (jeans and a button-down shirt) that no one will notice the difference.

XXXXXXXX

When we reach the house we stand as far away as possible while still being able to see. The house has collapsed in on itself and is now nothing more than a twisted heap of blackened coals soggy with water. Wisps of smoke sporadically rise, looking ghastly in the night sky. There are three fire trucks. I count six cop cars. Nine sets of flashing lights but no sound to go with them. Few people, if any, have left. They've been pushed back, the house cordoned off with yellow tape. The police officers are questioning some of them. Five firemen stand in the middle of it all, sifting through the rubble.

Then I hear "There they are!" yelled from behind me. Every set of eyes in the crowd turns my way. It takes me a full five seconds to realize that it is me the person is referring to.

Four police officers walk towards us. Behind them is a man holding a notepad and tape recorder. While we were looking for clothes, Sarah and I agreed on a story. I came around the back of the house where she was watching the fire. She had jumped out of the second-floor window with the dogs, who had run away. We had watched away from the crowd, but eventually drifted over and joined in. I explained to her that we couldn't tell anyone about what happened. For if anyone found out unnecessarily, I would have to leave immediately. As it stands now it will be difficult to convince Henri to let us continue to stay. We agreed that I would answer the questions and she would agree with whatever I said.

"Are you John Benson?" one of the cops asks me. The officer is of a medium height, and stands with his shoulders hunched. He isn't overweight but is far from being in shape, with a slight paunch and an overall look of softness.

"Yes, why?"

"Two people said they saw you run into that house and then come flying out the back of it like Superman, with the dogs and girl in your arms."

"Seriously?" I ask in disbelief. Sarah stays beside me.

"That's what they said."

I fake a laugh. "The house was on fire. Do I look like I was inside a burning house?"

He scrunched his eyebrows together and rests his hands on his hips. "So you're telling me you didn't go in there?"

"I came around the back of the house to try and find Sarah," I say. "She had gotten out with the dogs. We stayed back there and watched the fire and then came over here."

The officer looks at Sarah. "Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Well, who ran into that house, then?" the reporter beside him chimes in. It's his first time speaking. He watches me with shrewd, judging eyes. I can already tell that he doesn't believe my story.

"How would I know?" I say.

He nods his head and writes something in his notebook. I can't read what it says.

"So you're telling me these two witnesses are liars?" the reporter asks.

"Bains," the officer says, shaking his head at him.

"It's possible that they were just mistaken, it's been a long night and I am sure that they may have had a couple of drinks."

"Hmm... Interesting," he scribbles on his notepad some more.

I don't like this line of questioning or the look that this guy Baines is giving me.

"All right, Baines, that is enough questioning for now," the officer says.

"Can I leave?" I ask him. He nods his head. I walk away and pull out my phone to call Henri with Sarah still at my side.

"Hello," answers Henri.

"I'm ready to be picked up," I say. "There's been a terrible fire here."

"What?"

"Can you please just pick us up?"

"Yes. I will be right there."

"So how do you explain that cut on the top of your head?" Baines asks from behind me. He had been following me, listening to my call with Henri.

"You know it's really creepy to follow a teenage boy after being told to leave him alone by the police, and then proceed to listen in on his phone call right?"

"You didn't answer my question," He says with a sharp look in his eye. I can tell that he thinks he found out something I said was a lie and he is now prying to find out whatever he can.

"Nor did you respond to me calling you a creep, I don't want to talk with you any longer so please just leave us alone," I put my arms over Sarah's shoulder and pull her along walking away from Baines.

"I'll find the truth, Mr. Benson. I always do," Baines yells behind me.

I can see Sam just a little ways away and walk right up to him, I can tell that he is about to start asking a bunch of questions so I cut him off before he gets started.

"Henri is on the way."

"What the hell was that all about? And what happened in the house? Where was Sarah? Wh..."

"Look Sam I know you have a lot of questions, and I will answer all of them just please wait until tomorrow, I just want to get home. Sarah and I are safe and that is all that matters right now," I cut Sam off before he just explodes with all the questions he has, knowing that it will just attract that reporter back over with more questions again. Sam nods not exactly happy with my response but his questions have been quelled for later.

XXXXXXXX

We stand at the end of the driveway until Henri arrives. When he pulls up he steps out of the truck and looks at the smoldering house far off in the distance.

"Ah, hell. Promise me you weren't a part of this," he says.

"Nah," I say

We get into the truck. He pulls away while looking at the smoking rubble.

"You guys smell like smoke," Henri says.

"Sarah was caught upstairs by the fire so she was in the smoke for a while before getting out, and I was trying to fight the fire with the football players before trying to get people out of the house."

"At least you are all safe then," Henri says though I can tell from his tone that he expects a more detailed report of events when we get home.

The rest of the drive is in silence. Sarah sits in my lap our hands are entwined in her lap, she grips my hands so tight that even with my super strength it feels like she might crush them. We drop Sam off first, then Henri pulls out of the driveway and then makes his way towards Sarah's house.

"I don't want to leave you tonight," Sarah says to me.

"I don't want to either but your mom would be worried if you didn't show up after what happened tonight."

When we get to her house I get out with her and walk her to the door. She won't let go of me when I hug her good night.

"Will you call me when you get home?"

"Of course."

"I love you."

I smile. "I love you too."

She goes inside. I walk back to the truck, where Henri is waiting. I have to figure out a way to convince him to allow us to stay even despite what has happened here today. I don't want to lie to him, Henri should be the last person that I should do that too. He sacrificed everything to be here with me today and has helped me grow in ways that I know I wouldn't have been able to do by myself. Henri pulls out and drives home.

"So what happened? From the beginning John," Henri says as we get back on the road.

"We got there and it was a little weird at first with the interaction with Mark but we just brushed it off and tried to just have some fun. It was like an hour later that I had managed to convince Sam to go talk to Emily, a girl that he liked. They disappeared and I went around seeing if I could find Sarah as she had disappeared a while ago by this point." I could tell that he was getting bored of this and wanted to get to the point of how the fire happened and what all I did. "It wasn't much longer that Sam and Emily came running up the stairs and people were talking about a fire, I told Sam to get out and to take Emily with him. I went downstairs only to see the flames already beyond control, I started to get the people out of the house only to find out that Sarah was trapped inside with the dogs. I saw no other way to save her life so I ran inside around back where no-one could see me go in. I managed to make my way up to where Sarah and the dogs were but no way safely back down so I had to pick them all up and jump out a window. Getting back to the crowd of people out front of the house, unfortunately, led to a reporter and a police officer finding us and grilling us about a couple of people seeing me run in. I did my best to dissuade them of that but I think the reporter was suspicious and may start looking into what really happened," I say with a sigh at the end knowing that the reporter alone may just be enough to make us have to move.

I managed to get through the majority of what happened while giving as much detail as I could without taking half an hour to go over every small detail. But going off of Henri's expression I can tell that he isn't happy and that I doubt I'll get my wish of staying in Paradise much longer.

"John I'm sorry that you had to go through an experience like that. I know how much she means to you and I don't want you to think in any way that I am not proud of what you accomplished tonight, but I think for our safety along with Sarah's continued safety that we should leave as soon as possible. If any of what happened gets leaked and the Mogs find out, it won't be long before they send an army after us."

I can tell that he is being sincere and that he is only looking out for me, I know that he would lay down his life in order to protect me. And as much as I wanted to stay here, I know that it is for the best that we leave.

"Can I at least say goodbye to them tomorrow?" I plead to him.

"It's already been a long day for you and I don't think we have anything to worry about what happened getting out until Monday at the latest, so I think we are safe to stay the night and pack in the morning. You can say your goodbyes afterward but then we really must get going."

"Thank you, Henri!" I was surprised that he was giving me almost a full day to pack and prepare to leave.


	12. Chapter 12

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NOR CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE I AM NUMBER FOUR SERIES, THE LORIEN LEGACIES SERIES OR ANY WORKS MADE BY PITTACUS LORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PLEASE SUPPORT THIS RELEASE THIS IS FOR ALL WORKS AND POTENTIAL STORIES.

A.N. Sorry for the long wait, things got hectic and I lost interest in doing just about anything. I've started to get my drive back and I plan on trying to get more chapters out shortly. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a spot to end with the appropriate length so the next chapter will be longer to make up for this. Thank you again to all the people that have followed and favorited this story, if not for you few I don't know if I would have been able to keep writing with everything that's happened. I hope you enjoy the chapter and those to come!

Chapter 12-

I can't sleep. I lie in bed staring through the darkness at the ceiling. I call Sarah and we talk until three; I hang up and lie there with my eyes wide open. At four I crawl out of bed and walk out of the room. Henri sits at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. He looks up at me, bags beneath his eyes, hair tousled.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"I couldn't sleep either," he says. "Scouring the news, to make sure nothing pops up in the middle of the night."

"Did you find anything?"

"Yes, but I am not sure what it means to us just yet. The men who wrote and published They Walk Among Us, the men we met, were tortured and killed."

I sit across from him. "What?"

"Police found them when the neighbors called after hearing screams coming from the house. Unfortunately, that just goes to prove that the Mogs are getting bolder in their search for you. And they are close."

"I am going to guess that nothing of the fire has been revealed just yet," I ask

"Nothing that I could find just yet, though it's only been a few short hours since it happened. It is likely that nothing will be in the news until Monday, and if anything gets released through a third party then we should have time to escape before anything comes of it."

"You should get some sleep, we are no doubt going to be on the road for a while and you have yet to get any sleep. I am going to try and get a couple of hours in myself before I start on my packing to leave," I tell Henri as I can tell from the bags under his eyes that he could really use it.

"I think that might be a good idea, our bases are covered, for now, not much can happen in a couple of hours that we would need to worry over."

XXXXXXXX

I wake close to noon. Birds are chirping beyond the window, and the sunlight is pouring in. I breathe a sigh of relief. The fact that I am just now waking up means that either Henri is still asleep or nothing major has happened yet that would force us to leave early.

I roll off my back and I can feel the soreness from last night, thankfully part of what my heritage gives me is increased endurance and recovery time. So what little damage I took last night from all the running and jumping inside of a burning building has mostly been worn away from the night's rest.

Henri's truck is gone, more than likely to stock up on supplies for our inevitable departure. I head back inside and start packing, unlike some of the other places we stayed at I actually had unpacked my bags, so it will take me a little while to get everything ready to go. I start with the immediate necessities and move on to the surplus or extra items like extra pairs of clothing. I get finished closer to two, and Henri has yet to come back from wherever it is he had run off to, just then I hear the truck pull into the driveway signifying Henri's arrival. I meet him at the door and help bring in what supplies he got.

"We have a week's worth of rations for the two of us in this bag," Henri says as he hands me a grocery bag. "Put this in with your bags and I will have one in my bags as well, better safe than sorry I always say."

"Is this really necessary? We never had to do this before?" I ask.

"That's because we always stayed really close together, in the past you were still growing and had little training under your belt, and with the Mogs now close to us and getting more and more frantic with their search of you we must start taking more precautions in the case that we are ever split up."

I can see his reasoning, we never did have the luxury of knowing we would always stay together. It's actually more of a surprise that he is doing this now and not before when we had started my training when I was twelve.

"I also have set up a place for us to move to next. It is in a small town in Kansas named Lincoln. I can give you a ride if you like to Sam and Sarah's place to say goodbye then we can come back and finish packing or I can do the packing while you go say goodbye. It's your call."

"I will go ahead myself, I have my bags packed and sitting in my room. The backup bags are next to the window," I tell him.

"Don't be too long and don't give yourself away just because we are about to leave, stay safe," Henri says with a look in his eyes that I can't quite read.

"Alright, I will see you soon," I quickly run upstairs and put the bag of rations in my pack, and grab my phone before sprinting back down the stairs and out the door.

Bernie Kosar was outside doing his normal routine of checking the surrounding area for anything suspicious when I come running outside. He looks up at me and follows me as I clear the tree line in just a second after coming out that door. We are blitzing our way through the woods. Thankfully not many people come into these woods and they make traveling to town much quicker than just running down the side of the road.

After two minutes I am at the edge of town, a new record. Normally it would take me roughly three minutes but with my newest legacy and all the training I've put into it I'm able to slow down time enough at small enough intervals to boost my speed. Nothing too great I can only lightly jog when I'm using Aevitas unless I want to overwhelm my senses and maybe even blackout. So on the safe side, when I'm using Aevitas I go slow enough that I can manage using it for that full thirty seconds. I tell BK to head on back home and that I will see him when I am done this afternoon. He turns around after giving me a breathless 'okay'.

I know that Sam lives on the outskirts of Paradise in a small, modest house. He will probably take the longest to finish talking to between him and Sarah. I plan on coming clean to him about me being an alien and to tell him that I believe his father was kidnapped and that he has information that Henri and I need in our battle against the Mogodorians. I know that it will be hard for him to hear, I don't doubt my ability to prove to him what I am. The problem will be trying to keep him here and to try and convince him to not follow us in search of his father.

Even with the incredulity of what I'll say to Sam, what with all the questions I don't doubt that he will have. I know that saying goodbye to Sarah will take much longer. Although I know it is needed that we move on and try and find the others. It doesn't make leaving her any easier. I wish I was able to stay here with her and to eventually settle down and have a normal life, but that isn't a possibility. The Mogadorians will never stop searching for me, they will never allow me to have peace so long as I continue to live and oppose them.

XXXXXXXX

I arrive at Sam's house just a couple of minutes later, taking my time and trying to blend in by not running faster than the cars that are on the road. Sam's mother is at work and Sam is somewhere in the house. He doesn't answer when I knock and repeating what I did the last time that I came over to talk to him, I let myself in.

I find Sam in his bedroom, he is sitting there with a calculating look when I walk in through the door. His attention immediately snapping to me when I walk in.

"There you are, John!" Sam exclaims when he sees me.

"Hey Sam, sorry that I didn't message you when I was on my way."

'Never mind that, you said that you would tell me what happened. I don't know what you were planning on saying but John I saw you going into that building and then diving out the back of it like you were Superman or something!" Sam is waving his hands emphatically to demonstrate the absurdity of what he is saying. "Are you like some kind of superhero or something? I knew something was up that night in the woods. I can't believe you just let me continue on believing that what I saw was just a trick of the light or my imagination."

Sam is puffing for breath when he stops his rant waiting for me to explain myself and for me to place some kind of reason behind the incredulity of what happened.

"Yes, Sam I let you continue on believing what you saw that night was just your overactive imagination. I had a reason for it and I want you to wait and let me talk to you and explain some things before you start asking any more questions. Okay?"

"Okay John I will listen but I won't promise to not be upset with you still."

Figuring that was the best that I was going to get I press onwards.

"Henri and I are not what we seem to be. We came to Earth eleven years ago from a planet named Lorien. We came here because it was destroyed by the inhabitants of another planet named Mogadore. They destroyed Lorien for its resources because they had destroyed their own planet into a cesspool of decay. We came here to hide until we could return to Lorien, which we still plan to one day. But we were followed by the Mogadorians. They are here hunting us. And I believe they are here to take over Earth, and that is why we came here to this town, it was to try and find out more information."

Sam looks at me like he doesn't quite believe me, I can tell that he isn't fully convinced just yet.

"So I was right: you're an alien. You weren't joking when you admitted it," Sam says.

"Yes, you were right. But I couldn't just tell you that I was an alien, not with the Mogadorians on my tail. If they had gotten even so much as a wif that I was here they would come descending like locusts upon this town to try and flush me out," I tell him trying to convince him that this is the truth.

"How do I know that you are telling me the truth now?" Sam asks with at least a little skepticism.

To show him that I am telling him the truth I grab him with my telekinesis and lift him up in the air. His eyes go wide in shock and a little fear, I quickly set him back down.

"Because I have to leave, what happened last night was the final straw for Henri, there have already been issues since us arriving that would warrant us leaving if this was any other town."

"What do you mean? What is so special about this town?" I can tell that he is still trying to get his bearings from the reality bomb I just dropped on him by asking more questions.

"We came here for your dad Sam, he was one of the people that greeted Henri, Me, and the rest of my people. He gave us our first home and directions that would help us settle into society and get our feet under us. If it wasn't for your dad I don't know if we would have survived as long as we have. So we came here to Paradise to hopefully find your dad and to see what he knew about our plans to meet and return to Lorien. Although you know how that went, so I was registered in school to get to know you and to see if you knew what happened to your father or to see what you knew about his disappearance."

"I... I don't know what to say or how I am supposed to process this?" Tears are coming down his face. "So did you become my friend just to try and find my dad?"

"No, Sam. At first, I was supposed to get close to you to try and get some information, but after being around you I came to honestly start to call you my friend. My first friend even," I try and convey to him the honesty of my words, that I truly do call him my friend.

"I believe you, John. So what does this mean about my dad then? Do you think that he might have actually been abducted by these Mogadorians?" I can practically feel his desperation in his question.

"Henri and I think that it is a possibility, we were kind of stumped on what to do now besides keep an eye on the news around the world. Just waiting for someone to call out for help or to call us to gather and grow in strength."

"You said that you were telling me this because you have to leave right? Does that have anything to do with what happened last night?"

"Yes, it was the final straw. I am saying my goodbyes now while I can before we leave. I am going to go check up on Sarah next and try and say goodbye."

"Will I ever see you again?"

"There is a possibility, but I don't know. I will get ahold of you if I ever hear anything out about your dad, and I will do everything in my power to save him if they still have him," I tell him.

"What should I do then? I can't just stay here while there is a chance that my dad is out there somewhere alive and possibly being tortured by aliens!" Sam says a new determination in his eyes.

"I can't just tell you to stay here and expect that you won't just go out on your own. I understand where you are coming from and I want to help you more. Why don't you go talk to Henri, see if you can convince him to let you come with us or something? Go do that if you are serious about trying to do more while I go see Sarah."

"I'll do it! I'm going to convince him to let me come I'll save my dad if it's the last thing I do," The conviction he wields now as he stares at me leads me to believe that Henri doesn't stand a chance at convincing him of not coming with us.

"Then I expect you there when I get back with Henri fully on-board with you tagging along," I reach over to shake his hand as if I was congratulating him on getting a job.

"I'll be there!" He grasps my hand with a firm handshake before he turns around and starts to pack some necessities for our journey.

XXXXXXXX

Ten minutes later I find myself outside of Sarah's house.

The talk with Sam took a bit longer than I thought after he resolutely told me he was coming along. He started to pack some things that he thought necessary while asking some questions about the Mogadorians and the Loric and what we can do.

I tell him as much of the basics that I am comfortable doing that won't be something the Mogs don't already know. With the chance that Henri doesn't let him come along or something happening and us getting split up I think it the best idea for now. It may be me just being a little paranoid but I have learned that taking extra precautions never hurts, I will tell him more when we are on the road.

When I arrive at Sarah's front door it's close to four in the afternoon. The sun has started the final part of its descent across the horizon, it will be dark within the hour. I know Henri will be upset that we haven't left already but hopefully, Sam is able to occupy him enough that I can properly say goodbye to Sarah.

I knock on the door gently and wait a couple of seconds before Sarah's mother Annie opens it and welcomes me in. She asks if I need anything before going up to see Sarah, I politely decline.

I find Sarah in her room staring out the window when I come in, it's obvious that she isn't looking at anything in particular and is just staring blankly, or else she would have been the first to the door letting me in. I let out a fake cough to get her attention, she jumps, startled by what appears to her to be my sudden arrival.

"John.." is all she gets out before she rushes over to me, jumping into my arms and softly crying.

"Hey now hey.. what's wrong?" I'm surprised by her suddenly jumping into my arms and crying that I am unsure of what to do at first, although after a second I pull her in tighter and I sit down on her bed with her in my arms.

I hold her in my arms and lie on my back on the bed. Her head is against my chest and her body is draped over me.

"You're leaving aren't you," Sarah says. I can practically feel her sadness at having to separate especially after learning that there was more to me than I had initially let on. That I was something different and that there was a whole new person beyond what she already knew to be me.

"I am," I say. There is no point in lying and delaying the inevitable.

Knowing that I am going to leave she asks me questions about who I am, my past, about Lorien, about the Mogadorians. I'm still amazed at how quickly, and easily, Sarah believed everything, and how she's accepted it. I answer everything truthfully, which feels good to tell someone other than Heri. But when we talk about the Mogadorians. I'm worried that they'll find us. That what I did will expose us. I would do it again, for if I didn't Sarah would be dead.

We stay like that for a while, her asking questions about myself and the people that I come from. I tell her all that I know about Lorien, its people, and my family. At least all that I can remember about them that is. I tell her about my legacies, how they originate and how I will continue to go on getting stronger until I get to the point that I can fight the Mogadorians and finally return to Lorien and help restart my race.

It's around seven in the afternoon, the sun fully descended and the darkness has fully taken over. I say my goodbyes and tell her that once this is all said and done that I would reach out to her and maybe if she hasn't forgotten me that maybe there could possibly be a future for us. She nods her head telling me that she would really like that, and she watches as I walk away before disappearing entirely.

A.N. Sorry for the dual AN's but I felt that I needed to address something about this story that no doubt some of you have guessed already. It never sat right with me how the Loric we know don't have the same amount of Legacies, or even like a minimum beyond two those being the TK and one legacy. I mean Five has TK, Externa, and Flight and that doesn't feel right. So in my "infinite wisdom," I decided that each Loric would have a minimum of Six Legacies, those few that didn't have six already got some new ones and I plan on upgrading the Legacies that are already there but that I feel lacking. If anyone has any ideas that you would like to see please feel free to PM or leave a review.


End file.
